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quote:In the latest salvo of the propaganda war, the British government today claimed that five days of aerial bombardment had not claimed a single civilian life in Afghanistan.
The country's Taliban regime, which is bearing the brunt of the US-led onslaught, on the contrary claims that women and children are among the ranks of civilian casualties.
The Taliban claimed that 140 people were killed on Wednesday night alone, including 50 people from a small village in the east of the country and 15 killed when a US missile hit a mosque.
But Britain's development secretary, Clare Short, categorically dismissed the Taliban's claims.
"It is widely understood by refugees that there have not been civilian casualties," Ms Short told journalists at the Ministry of Defence daily briefing.
Full story.
Do they honestly expect anyone to believe this? NO civilian casualties? Not a single one?
Well, we'll soon find out...
quote:The Taliban have invited a group of journalists into Afghanistan to visit a village they claim was hit by a stray US bomb, killing more than 200 people.
It is the first time western journalists have been allowed into a Taliban-controlled area of the country since the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, although several journalists have been smuggled across the border.
The Taliban claimed today that at least 200 people were killed on Wednesday in an air strike on the remote village of Karam, about 80 miles east of Kabul.
Nineteen television and news agency journalists are believed to have been invited into the country, including representatives from Reuters, Associated Press and CNN.
In other news, the Americans have started dropping cluster bombs on Afghanistan.
quote:The weapons - which scatter about 150 small "bomblets" over a large area and whose use has been condemned by the Red Cross and other hu manitarian agencies - can be dropped by B-52 bombers.
...The Red Cross last year called for a ban on cluster bombs.
In a report sent to the UN it said some 30,000 unexploded bomblets remained in Kosovo after the conflict ended. They are estimated to have caused up to 150 casualties, including the death of two Gurkha soldiers.
"Unlike anti-personnel mines, incidents involving these sub-munitions usually result in death or injury to several people as a result of their greater explosive power," the Red Cross said.
Cluster bombs are used to cover a broad area rather than a single specific target. The bomblets, or "sub-munitions", contain higher explosive than landmines and their normally brightly-coloured casings make them attractive to children.
An internal Ministry of Defence report estimated that 60% of the 531 cluster bombs dropped by the RAF during the conflict in Kosovo missed their in tended target or remain unaccounted for. Cluster bombs were dropped from medium and high altitudes during the Kosovo conflict despite official US assessments after the 1991 Gulf war that they were likely to miss their targets.
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