>From "The Times" U.K.
Saturday October 13th, 2001
Bombing victim tells how US raid hit village

By Stephen Farrel in Peshawar and Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

A US attack has struck the small village of Kakrak, 18 miles
west of Jalalabad, according to a witness. Fazl Rehman, 31,
speaking from his hospital bed in Peshawar, Pakistan, said
that at about 11.30pm on Wednesday, at least two US cruise
missiles hit the village, apparently aimed at a huge but now
deserted Taleban weapons dump a mile away on Black Mountain.

As mud brick walls collapsed under the force of high
explosives delivered from thousands of feet above, Mr Rehman
was knocked unconscious by what would appear to be the most
controversial American strike yet on Afghanistan. One
minute, the truck driver and three friends were asleep after
a languid autumn evening playing cards; the next, neighbours
were pulling them from the debris of a village flattened
around them in which, according to unverifiable claims by
the Taleban, nearly 200 civilians died.

"It was about 11.30pm and we were woken by a huge
explosion. My friend was just lighting the lamp to see what
had happened when there was a second explosion and the whole
room fell in on us," Mr Rehman said. "I only realised I had
broken my arm when I was dragged from the mud and
debris. All I could see was that all the houses around had
been levelled."

The Taleban brought trucks to ferry the injured to hospital
in Jalalabad, 90 minutes' drive away across pitted rural
roads. When Mr Rehman arrived at the overcrowded hospital,
doctors were clearing beds to make room for the carloads
from Kakrak, which disgorged half a dozen new patients every
15 minutes.

"The doctors and visitors told me that 150 to 180 people had
died, but I don 't know because it was dark and there was no
time to think of others," he said. "They kept putting new
beds in my ward but eventually they told me, they needed the
space to treat seriously injured patients, so they brought
me to the border and the Pakistan Government got an
ambulance to bring me here." Mr Rehman's account is
impossible to check.

The patient in the adjoining bed, Mullah Katur, 26, claimed
to have been injured in a direct hit on a 400-bed hospital
in central Kabul where, he said, dozens of patients died
when bombs hit the top three floors and a walkway in a
bombing attack three days ago. Again, there is no
independent corroboration for his claims and Taleban
officials have not highlighted any such attack, as might be
expected. However, other arrivals from Afghanistan yesterday
also recounted reports of mass deaths in Kakrak.

Mr Rehman said that the Taleban had a military base near
Kakrak, confirming that until earlier this year the
sprawling hilltop compound of tents and huts held rocket
launchers, four-wheel-drive vehicles, 82mm and 72mm
anti-tank rockets and vehicles mounted with machineguns,
mainly Chinese-made. However, the former Mujahidin fighter,
who learnt how to recognise and use weapons while fighting
against the Russians in the 1980s, said a team of Arabs
arrived in the area six months ago and dismantled the base,
taking all the weapons and equipment into remote
areas. Tellingly, he condemned the World Trade Centre
attacks and professed no love for the Taleban.

The strike has been seized upon by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef,
the Taleban Ambassador to Pakistan. He said that more than
100 civilians had been "martyred" by a strike on the Torghar
(Black Mountain) area, while other Taleban officials
yesterday gave different names for the village, which lies
near the area where Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network ran
training camps.

Residents fleeing Kandahar said that the ten-year-old son of
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taleban leader, and his
stepfather, had been killed in a direct hit on one of his
houses. Quoting Afghan refugees, Pakistan's Jang newspaper
said a bomb hit Mullah Omar's home minutes after he left for
a hideout. The report said both were killed on the second
day of the American airstrikes.

It was also reported that Mullah Omar's Chevrolet Suburban
car and the occupants inside had been hit on
Wednesday. Asked if that was an attempt to kill the Taleban
leader, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, did not
confirm it, but said: "The United States is seeking out
concentrations of people who are involved in these terrorist
activities . . . and when we find them we try to deal with
them."

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.