Taliban accuses opposition of massacre

The Taliban Islamic Movement of Afghanistan on Wednesday accused the opposition Northern Alliance of massacring about 120 civilians during its brief occupation of the central Afghan city of Bamyan last week, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Thursday. The Taliban-run ‘Shariat’ newspaper quoted eyewitnesses as saying that opposition fighters shot and killed as many as 120 people, including children, after looting a civilian convoy of trucks a few kilometres east of the provincial capital on Wednesday 14 February. The opposition rejected the Taliban allegation, calling it propaganda, AP reported. “We don’t control the area where the incident occurred,” it quoted Mohammed Abil, an opposition spokesman, as saying by telephone from the northern province of Takhar. The Taliban lost Bamyan to the opposition early this month, but recaptured it on Sunday, 18 January.