ISLAMABAD, Dec 23: A tribal leader in eastern Afghanistan threatened on Sunday to launch a war against Afghan Interim Setup Chairman Hamid Karzai if US jets launched another attack on his area, Afghan Islamic Press reported.

The warning from Gulab Din, head of the Zadran tribe in the Paktia province, came as the US government struggled to shake off accusations that its jets had attacked a convoy taking tribal elders and other local officials to Karzai’s inauguration in Kabul on Saturday.

According to AIP, 65 people were killed in the attack on the convoy near the town of Khost. Senior US officials have insisted Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders were in the convoy.

Din said the US attacks had killed only civilians, and warned: “If the US launches similar tyrannical attacks again, we will launch an armed struggle against Hamid Karzai’s government.”

He accused the head of the Khost administration, Bacha Khan, of supplying wrong information to US forces and causing the attack on the convoy. “Bacha Khan is giving wrong information to the Americans. If he does it again, we will wage an armed struggle against him also.” The tribal leader said there were no Taliban or Al-Qaeda fighters in the convoy.

AIP quoted a wounded Afghan, Mazali, as saying that seven members of his family had been killed in the bombing.

At least 14 houses in his village of Pakhari had been razed in the US attacks in which women and children had also died, he said. “We will start a Jihad against Karzai if US jets repeated such attacks.”

Gen Tommy Franks, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, insisted on Saturday that US warplanes had been fired on before attacking the convoy.

“Friendly forces don’t fire surface-to-air missiles at you”, he said in Kabul just before the inauguration of the interim government.

“We believe it was a bad convoy. We have reason to believe it was a good target. Right now we have people on the ground investigating but we are convinced it was a good target.”—AFP