Hindustan Times

30 foreign journalists hostage in Afghanistan: report PTI (Islamabad, October 22)

Thirty foreign journalists from different countries, including India, who secretly entered Afghanistan to cover the ongoing military action by the US, have been captured by unidentified Afghan tribesmen north of Kabul.

The mediapersons who entered Afghanistan from the Uzbekistan border through areas controlled by the Northern Alliance were captured by the tribesmen at Ostana village, a report in Pakistani daily Pakistan Observer said.

It said the mediapersons included journalists from India, US, Britain, Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, France and the middle east.

The report could not be independently confirmed.

The journalists, who went there in helicopters, were captured as they landed ahead of the Taliban defence lines north of the capital Kabul, the daily said.

The tribesmen reportedly demanded one thousand dollars as ransom to release them.

A Bulgarian journalist who managed to contact his office said the conditions under which they were kept were "bad".

A large number of journalists covered the war from areas controlled by the Northern Alliance.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001

Answers

Taliban say US forces using chemical weapons Reuters (KABUL, October 22)

US-led forces, now in their third week of attacks against Afghanistan, have been using chemical and biological weapons, a spokesman for the hardline ruling Taliban said on Monday.

"Today in my contact with doctors in Herat and Kandahar, they told me that they have found signs that Americans are using biological and chemical weapons in their attacks," Taliban information ministry spokesman Abdul Hanan Himat told Reuters.

"The affects are transparent on the wounded; a state of poisonousness is one of them," he said. The accusation could not be independently confirmed.

Himat added that overnight attacks on Tarin Kot, capital of Uruzgan province, located north of Kandahar, killed 18 civilians and wounded a further 25 to 35.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001