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Muhammad Najeeb in Islamabad
The Taleban on Tuesday said it was ready for a long war and considered the United States-led strikes against Afghanistan a "crusade against Muslims".
Shah Wali, a senior official at the Taleban mission in Islamabad, said the militia had deployed forces across the country to face the American ground offensive.
He said the US was using destructive and sophisticated weapons against civilians.
"The US attacks on civilians are tantamount to state terrorism. The American forces want to kill innocent civilians after failing in their mission," Wali told Indo-Asian News Service.
Wali said the Taleban had no doubt that the war launched against it was not against terrorism but a "crusade against Muslims".
He claimed the Taleban had captured at least 60 US commandos besides shooting down two helicopters. Furthermore, the Taleban had also seized 27 fighters of the opposition Northern Alliance.
On Tuesday morning, 11 people were killed in the suburbs of Jalalabad in new air attacks, he said.
On Monday, Wali said, 100 people had died when US jets targeted a hospital at Herat. The victims included patients, doctors, children and women.
He further said 18 people were killed when US planes bombed two clinics and shops in Kandahar. "Americans are intentionally targeting the civilian population as a part of genocide of Muslims," he said.
According to information that the Taleban mission had received from Kabul, a Japanese man claiming to be a journalist had been arrested in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar.
Wali said the man, whose name was not known, had been arrested for illegally entering the country.
He said Monday night's air strikes continued without any break at Kandahar, Kabul, Uruzgan, the native province of Taleban supreme commander Mullah Mohammed Omar, and, also for the first time, in Paktia province, where a mosque and a clinic were hit.
Indo-Asian News Service
The War on Terrorism: The Complete Coverage
The Terrorism Weblog: Latest Stories from Around the World
External Link: For further coverage, please visit www.saja.org/roundupsept11.html
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