Washington: The United Nations on August 28 ruled out a probe into the alleged massacre of the Taleban during the US-led offensive against the then Afghan rulers and al-Qaida following the September 11 attack in America.

"I don't think the government has the capacity to carry out an investigation," Brahimi said adding, "We have a responsibility to find out what happened but our responsibility to the living has to take precedence. We can't take the risk of putting anyone's life in danger," UN Special Representative in Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi said on August 27 in Kabul.

'The Washington Post' said, quoting the UN official, that the weakness of the Afghan government and the risk to investigators or witnesses has made it almost impossible to investigate reports that the bodies in mass graves in Northern Afghanistan are those of 1,000 Taleban prisoners.

The Northern Alliance, in majority in the present ruling dispensation, reportedly suffocated in sealed trucks last November while being transported from Kunduz province to a prison for the militia in Shebergan, 200 miles in the West.

Afghan authorities have said that they are willing to co-operate in any probe by international human rights groups or other foreign agencies but they have not initiated an investigation. President Hamid Karzai sent a delegation to the area several days ago but the result of the trip has not been made public.

A team of UN investigators, said the paper, confirmed the existence of mass graves in the town of Dasht-i-Lelli in May and exhumed three bodies which they said showed signs of suffocation.

Brahimi's office in Kabul had earlier called for a "full-scale investigation" of the site.

PTI