Afghan official says US missile killed innocent villagers

Tuesday February 12, 5:18 AM AFP

Innocent civilians were killed in a US missile strike in eastern Afghanistan last week and not al-Qaeda terrorists, an official said as US troops prepared to DNA test the remains.

US soldiers investigating the results of the missile attack in Zhawar Kili, Khost province, were bringing human remains and other material from the scene to a base in northern Afghanistan for analysis, a spokesman said.

"They have located evidence which will be turned in for DNA testing," US Army Major A.C. Roper said.

About 50 soldiers from the US 101st Airborne Division were working at the site of the missile strike but had since left, Roper said.

"The forces on the ground have found significant evidence that will be turned in for analysis," Roper said.

The material, primarily bits of skin, bone or hair, could provide important DNA clues to identify who was killed by the missile, US officials have said.

Officials said the CIA-launched missile strike in a former al-Qaeda stronghold appeared to have hit its target -- a tall man who was being treated with great deference by those around him.

US media and Pentagon officials have speculated that the tall man may have been al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 suicide attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

But Mirza Ali, deputy Afghan minister of border affairs, told AFP in Kabul that according to locals in Khost, the three people killed in the raid were all civilians from the village of Gorbaz.

"They were collecting metal -- bits of exploded bomb -- when they were attacked," Ali said. "As far as we know, and according to the locals, they were innocent."

The Washington Post and the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press have both quoted local villagers as saying those killed were civilians.

But Roper said the claims were "not consistent with our intelligence".

US officials have vowed to catch bin Laden, and the search for traces of him is a key mission of the nearly 4,000 US and allied troops based at the international airport in southern Kandahar.

Late Sunday, troops guarding the perimeter of the base captured three people and turned them over to Afghan authorities, Roper said, without saying why.

Meanwhile, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai reopened his country's embassy in the United Arab Emirates Monday, marking a new era in relations with one of only three countries to have recognized the Taliban regime.

Karzai held talks with Emirati President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan after delivering the keynote address at a conference in Abu Dhabi, where he slammed the Taliban and al-Qaeda terror network.

"The Taliban were not representative of Afghanistan," and Arab al-Qaeda membrs who fought with them "were not representative of the Arabs."

"What they did was "an aberration of Islam."

The talks with his UAE counterpart focused on the "latest developments in Afghanistan and the efforts being exerted to achieve peace, stability and prosperity for the people in Afghanistan," the official WAM newsagency said.

Karzai has called for UAE support in "building a united Afghan army," and for aid to rebuild his shattered nation.

In Moscow, Defence Minister General Mohammad Qasim Fahim began talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov, expected to focus on possible military assistance to Kabul's interim regime, Interfax reported.

US forces at Kandahar meanwhile welcomed troops from NATO allies Canada and Norway to the ongoing war against terror.

Soldiers raised the Canadian flag to the tune of bagpipes playing "O Canada," the national anthem, and then the Norwegian flag in front of the main terminal of the international airport to join the Afghan and US flags already flying.

The flag-raising ceremony was an example of how the world's nations were standing together to fight terror, said US army Colonel Frank Wiercinski, commander of the multinational task force.

"Make no mistake: Terrorism once again has failed," he said. "We stand together as a band of brothers."