Pentagon Goes to Great Length to Refute Taliban Military Success Claims

04/05/2001| IslamWeb

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Islamweb & News Agencies) - The United Nations said on Tuesday it had learned that a military hospital had been destroyed in the western Afghan city of Herat but it had no information about the casualties.
``Our information, which we received late this afternoon, is that a hospital in Herat was hit and it was reportedly destroyed,'' U.N. spokeswoman Stephani Bunker told a news conference.
``It was a military hospital, in a military compound in the eastern outskirts of the city... We have no idea of the casualties,'' Bunker said, explaining that she had no more information from Herat.
The Taliban said Monday as many as 100 people had been killed when U.S.-led forces bombed and destroyed a hospital there.
Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press had reported a day earlier that U.S. bombs had destroyed an empty military hospital in Herat.
Meanwhilie, Pentagon officials speaking on condition of annonimity said that the holicepter wheels shown by the Taliban Monday to prove a claim to downing a US helicopter gunship may have been shed by one of their planes in distress and that plane could have landed safely.
The source also said that the attack on a hospital in Herat was not deliberate and that the military hospital could have been flattened as a consequence of an attack on a military facility in the city adding that that hospital was not marked as a hospital otherwise it would not have been attacked, according to the source.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lashed out October 22, 2001 at leaks to journalists about a special forces operation while troops were still in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld expressed frustration about having to fend off questions about news reports Friday that special forces had been inserted into Afghanistan, while the operation had not been fully completed. Rumsfeld is seen during a Pentagon briefing. (Hyungwon Kang/Reuters)
- Oct 22 5:36 PM ET