Afghanistan's Taliban militia claimed Saturday they had shot down an unmanned spy plane in the northern province of Samangan, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.
"We shot a spy plane but we have not yet been able to determine which country this plane belonged to," Abdul Hai Mutmaen, a spokesman for the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, was quoted as saying.
"We have closed our airspace and this plane entered without permission, so we shot it down."
A senior Taliban diplomat in Peshawar, Mawlawi Najibullah, had earlier been quoted as identifying the plane as belonging to the United States, the first claim of any military contact between the US and the Taliban.
The diplomat said the unmanned plane was shot down with "heavy machine guns" early Saturday in the village of Sang Salad in the northern province of Samangan, situated close to the border with Uzbekistan.
Washington is gearing up for a possible attack on Afghanistan's Taliban, who have defied a US ultimatum to hand over Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Unmanned spy planes normally fly at high altitude, far outside the range of heavy machine guns.
Observers also noted that the Taliban had failed to shoot down a single opposition plane in years of civil war -- ISLAMABAD (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
