16 U.S. Marines Killed in Kandahar: Pakistani Paper

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 28, 2001

16 U.S. Marines Killed in Kandahar: Pakistani Paper

Sixteen U.S. Marines were killed by Taliban fighters when they landed Monday at an airfield near Kandahar, the militia's last stronghold in southern Afghanistan, a Pakistani daily reported Wednesday.

Sixteen U.S. Marines were killed by Taliban fighters when they landed Monday at an airfield near Kandahar, the militia's last stronghold in southern Afghanistan, a Pakistani daily reported Wednesday.

A contingent of Taliban attacked the airfield ''before the newly arrived Marines had time to settle down,'' the Peshawar-based Frontier Post said, quoting unnamed sources. ''The ensuing battle left no less than 16 Marines dead.''

The English-language daily also reported that Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., left Afghanistan more than 20 days ago.

''He (bin Laden) is not in Afghanistan and has left many days ago and we are not aware of his destination,'' a senior Taliban official told the daily.

The Frontier Post quoted another senior Taliban official as saying that the U.S. knows his whereabouts but is ''deliberately avoiding targeting him because its main aim was to dismantle the Islamic system established by the Taliban in Afghanistan.''

According to the daily, more than 6,000 Taliban soldiers have been killed since the launch of the U.S.-led air strikes against the war-torn country on Oct. 7.

The report said, quoting ''sources close to the Taliban,'' that the fundamentalist Islamic militia is ''waiting anxiously to confront the U.S. troops and to embrace martyrdom in the fight.''

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