Afghan Taleban warns UN over child soldiers charge
01:05 p.m Nov 30, 1999 Eastern

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar on Tuesday threatened to forcibly take U.N. officials to the frontlines of its war with rival Afghan groups ``to see the truth'' unless U.N. chief Kofi Annan withdrew charges that children under 14 were fighting for Taleban.

Omar, speaking by telephone from his headquarters in the southern Afghan town of Kandahar, said he was giving Annan until Wednesday to withdraw the child soldier recruitment accusation he made on Monday in a report to the U.N. General Assembly.

``There are no children under 14 in our ranks,'' Omar told Reuters.

He said he was inviting U.N. officials to visit Taleban frontlines to see for themselves. Asked what the Taleban, which controls most of Afghanistan, would do if the U.N. officials refused to go, Omar said:

``Unless he withdraws this charge by tomorrow evening, we will compel them to accompany us, and take them to the frontlines so they could see what is the truth and what is falsehood.''

The U.N. secretary-general said in his report that war, opium traffic, gross human rights violations and religious extremism made the outlook grim for Afghanistan and threatened its neighbours.

``Afghanistan is becoming a breeding ground for religious extremism and sectarian violence as well as various types of international terrorism, the scope of which far exceeds Afghan boundaries,'' Annan said in an obvious reference to the harsh stricture of Taleban.

He said the growing presence of thousands of foreign ``volunteers,'' some children under 14, from religious schools in Pakistan as well as independent Arab fighters in aid of the Taleban was unacceptable.