ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Fearing widespread starvation in Afghanistan if America attacks, the United Nations on Saturday sent its first food shipments there since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a U.N. spokesman said. (Read photo caption below)

In Islamabad, a spokesman for the World Food Program, Khaled Mansour, said convoys carrying 200 tons of wheat left the Pakistani border city of Peshawar on Saturday for the Afghan capital, Kabul. Other shipments would be dispatched in a few days for Kabul and the western city of Herat, he said.
Humanitarian groups have been warning of impending starvation inside Afghanistan because of political turmoil, drought and the threat of American attack. The Taliban are sheltering Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The United Nations fears that if the United States attacks Afghanistan, up to 1.5 million Afghans will seek shelter in Pakistan and other neighboring countries. In preparation for such an influx, the U.N. refugee agency announced its first emergency flight of supplies to Pakistan to prepare for a possible influx.
An Ilyushin-76 cargo plane flew in nearly 50 tons of plastic sheeting for emergency shelter and plans to shuttle more supplies from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Pakistan.
The United Nations and international relief organizations evacuated their foreign staff from Afghanistan after the terror attacks, leaving local Afghan staffers to tend to an estimated 5 million people who rely on outside aid for survival.
Last week, the United Nations said its offices in the southern city of Kandahar were shut down and occupied by the Taliban - and that most of its staff have been prohibited from using satellite phones, cutting off communication with the outside world.
On Saturday, U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said U.N. offices have been looted in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, though it wasn't clear what was stolen or by whom.
The U.N. decision to resume shipments comes as hopes for peacefully resolving the standoff between the United States and the Taliban are fading. The Taliban have refused to hand over bin Laden and the chief lieutenants in his alleged terror network, known as al-Qaida.
Kabul Radio reported that Taliban officials held a series of meetings Saturday in at least eight provinces to prepare the public for a possible U.S. attack.
PHOTO CAPTION:
A UNICEF worker rides on a convoy from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Afghanistan Saturday, Sept. 29, 2001. Over 200 metric ton's of educational material, high protein food, and winter supplies were being shipped by UNICEF in 15 trucks to Afghanistan's north as over a million refugees are expected to spill out of Afghanistan if the U.S. strikes in retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States. (AP Photo/John McConnico)