PAKISTAN: The crash of a US military refuelling plane into a mountain in Pakistan, a collision in which seven marines died, appeared to be accidental and not due to enemy fire, the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said yesterday.
"My understanding is that there is no evidence that it was anything other than an aircraft crash," Mr Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon media briefing.
The KC-130 refuelling aircraft crashed on Wednesday near Shamsi in Pakistan, while trying to land at a base used by US forces fighting in Afghanistan.
An initial military investigation of the crash had found "no evidence that it was anything other than a crash into that ridge line," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"It had bladders of fuel aboard, and the fireball occurred, according to the best evidence we have, as it hit the ground, not before it hit the ground," he added.
The Interim Afghan leader, Mr Hamid Karzai, has ordered armed men out of the capital Kabul and identified a primary goal of reimposing security across the rugged, war-shattered land where rival warlords swiftly grabbed fiefdoms in the weeks following the collapse of the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the first al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners held by US forces were flown out of Afghanistan yesterday as ground troops combed eastern mountains for more fugitives and US warplanes bombed an Osama bin Laden base.
Gunfire erupted as the huge US military C-17 aircraft, carrying the first batch of some 20 prisoners, left Kandahar air base bound for a US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, CNN said. The reason for the shooting was not clear.
The US military will use unprecedented security, including chains and possibly sedation and hoods, as it flies the prisoners to Guantanamo, defence officials in Washington said. The men were flown out in two lots of 10 each, dressed in orange jumpers, chained and with their beards shaven, CNN said. Their beards had been shaved for reasons of hygiene, it quoted US officials as saying.
Confusion over the surrender of at least one Taliban minister and a local deal to release him raised questions about the control the interim administration exercises outside the capital.
Two men who held cabinet posts during the Taliban era and are now in hiding in eastern Afghanistan said they were thinking about surrendering but wanted to be sure they would not be imprisoned or handed over to US forces. They were identified as Mullah Manzoor and Mullah Abibullah.
Mr Karzai said the capture of the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and bin Laden, was just a matter of time.
US jets bombed positions around Zhawar Kili, a training camp some 30 km south-west of Khost, an area that has come under air attack for days in the hunt for remnant Taliban and fighters of bin Laden's al-Qaeda, the private Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.
Several helicopters ferried in about 50 US ground troops to eastern Khost, taking the number in the area to about 150.
Mr Karzai has said the bombing, which has claimed scores if not hundreds of civilian casualties, must continue until it can achieve its goal.
Witnesses have described seeing dozens of Arab families and al-Qaeda fighters making their way over the border into Iran.
In his first television address to the nation late on Wednesday, Mr Karzai urged unity to create a national army.
With a major aid donors conference scheduled for Tokyo later this month, Mr Karzai has outlined plans to restore order.
The bizarre fate of former Taliban cabinet members who surrendered to Afghan officials took a new twist when a spokesman said one had left for Pakistan but could be called back and handed over to the United States.
Mr Khalid Pashtoon, spokesman for the Kandahar governor, Mr Gul Agha Sherzai, withdrew a statement he had made on Tuesday that three ministers turned themselves in. This had prompted US authorities to demand senior Taliban officials be detained for questioning.
Mr Pashtoon said from Kandahar that the former justice minister, Mr Nooruddin Turabi - a one-eyed, one-legged cleric known for his leading role behind the Taliban's feared religious police - was among seven senior Taliban who surrendered but was the only ex-minister.
Mr Turabi was notorious for ordering the beating of women not fully veiled and for the destruction of the famed Bamiyan Buddhas.