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DUBAI/KABUL (Reuters) - A Gulf television station said
on Saturday that Afghan security forces had seized members of the U.S.
special forces in Afghanistan, but the ruling Taliban swiftly denied the
report.
Quoting a military source from Osama bin Laden's al
Qaeda network, Qatar's al-Jazeera television said the five Americans --
two of whom it described as Afghans with U.S. citizenship -- were U.S.
special forces scouting near the Iranian border with modern weapons and
some maps of al Qaeda sites.
Asked about the report, the Taliban's defense minister,
Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, told Reuters: "It is totally wrong, we deny this
news that they have come to our areas."
Kabul's official news agency Bakhtar also issued a
denial, saying: "It is not true and has no basis. We contacted the
authorities in Kandahar and Nimroz provinces about it and they denied
it."
Al-Jazeera said it stood by its report, which it said
had been reconfirmed by its correspondent in Islamabad.
"I don't care about the Taliban or the Pentagon. What I
care about is that sources which are beyond doubt called us and we know
these sources," correspondent Ahmad Zaidan told the satellite television
channel from Pakistan.
The United States has named Afghan-based militant bin
Laden and his al Qaeda followers as prime suspects in the September 11
suicide air attacks on New York and Washington, which left 6,500 dead or
missing and feared dead.
A
Pentagon spokesman on Saturday declined comment on the contradicting
reports out of Afghanistan. "We've seen the stories and we are not going
to get into the habit of commenting on every story that comes out of the
region," he said.
SPECIAL FORCES
U.S. media have said small groups of U.S. Special
Operations forces, which include such units as the Army's Green Berets and
Navy's SEALS, have been operating in the rugged Muslim state in recent
days.
"The five were arrested, three Americans and two
Afghans, who were trained in the U.S. Special Forces and have U.S.
citizenship. The three Americans are also from the U.S. Special Forces,"
the source told Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad by telephone.
"They had some modern weapons and some maps of al Qaeda
sites," the source was quoted as saying. "They were on a reconnaissance
mission to know the territory of al Qaeda."
He said pictures of the men would be released
soon.
Al-Jazeera, known for its 1998 and 1999 exclusive
interviews with bin Laden in Afghanistan, said it was not expecting more
on the story from its correspondent.
The Taliban did not rule out the possibility that some
foreigners could be in regions held by anti-Taliban forces north of Kabul
and in rugged areas of the northeast near the border with Tajikistan but
denied they were in areas under its control.
"They could be in the opposition areas. We don't reject
that possibility," Akhund said.
OPPOSITION DOUBT REPORT
The opposition Northern Alliance's foreign minister, Dr.
Abdullah, told reporters in the town of Jabal-us-Saraj that he also
strongly doubted that any British or U.S. special forces were operating in
Taliban-held territory.
The Taliban were in full control of their own areas, he
said: "Unless the command and control system of the Taliban is crushed in
a way that they lose control of the situation...it is difficult to believe
that the special forces could operate or achieve the objectives that they
wanted to achieve."
An Alliance spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the
presence in its own opposition areas of U.S. or British forces.
"Our security sources have not come across such a sign
to indicate that they are here. We can neither confirm nor deny the
report," Sayed Najibullah Hashimi, an opposition spokesman, told Reuters
by satellite telephone.
He did say that some 250 foreign journalists, mostly
Westerners, were in opposition-held areas. The Taliban have not allowed
any Western nationals into their territory.
Britain's Foreign Office said it was in contact with the
Taliban about a reporter, Yvonne Ridley of London's Sunday Express, who
was arrested on Friday near the eastern city of Jalalabad, about nine
miles from the Pakistani border.
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