11:30/13:07:2009

WASHINGTON (PAN): US President Barrack Obama has asked his national security team to look into allegations of mass murder of Taliban fighters by US-backed forces in Afghanistan . The issue was brought to light by the Noble Prize-winning Physicians for Human Rights -- a non-profit organization -- before The New York Times published an investigative report on the mass murder. "Yeah, the indications that this had not been properly investigated just recently were brought to my attention.

So what Ive asked my national security team to do is to collect the facts for me that are known. "And well probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all the facts gathered up, Obama told the CNN in an interview aired on Sunday.

"I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war. And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that, Obama observed.Physicians for Human Rights, which shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, welcomed the presidential statement.

"Physicians for Human Rights praise President Obama for ordering his national security team to collect all the facts in the Dasht-i-Leili massacre and apparent US cover-up," said PHR Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin. According to US government documents obtained by Physicians for Human Rights, as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the US in November 2001. Their bodies were reportedly buried in mass graves in the Dasht-i-Leili desert near Shiberghan. Notorious Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was reportedly on the CIA payroll, is allegedly responsible for the massacre.