Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
By CARLOTTA GALL | September 8, 2008
AZIZABAD, Afghanistan — To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.
Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.
For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”
“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.
The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.
The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad on Thursday to pay his respects to the mourners, condemning the strikes, and vowing to arrest an Afghan he says misled American forces with false intelligence.
President Bush expressed his regrets and sympathy in a call to Mr. Karzai on Wednesday. And General McKiernan has issued several statements voicing sorrow for civilian casualties.
The Afghan government is demanding changes in the accords defining the United States military engagement in Afghanistan, in particular ending American military raids on villages and halting the detention of Afghan citizens.
“People are sick of hearing there is another case of civilian casualties,” one presidential aide said.
Differing Accounts
The accounts of the airstrike’s aftermath given by Afghans and Americans could not be further apart.
A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves. Thirteen of the graves were so small they could hold only children; another 13 were marked with stones in the way that Afghans identify women’s graves.
Villagers questioned separately identified relatives in the graves; their names matched the accounts given by elders of the village of those who died in each of eight bomb-damaged houses and where they were buried. They were quite specific about who was killed in the airstrikes and did not count those who died for other reasons; one of the fresh graves, they said, belonged to a man who was killed when villagers demonstrated against the Afghan Army on Aug. 23.
At the battle scene, shell craters dotted the courtyards and shrapnel had gouged holes in the walls. Rooms had collapsed and mud bricks and torn clothing lay in uneven mounds where people had been digging. In two places blood was splattered on a ceiling and a wall. An old woman pushed forward with a cauldron full of jagged metal bomb fragments, and a youth presented cellphone video he said was shot on the day of the bombing; there was no time stamp.
The smell of bodies lingered in one compound, causing villagers to start digging with spades. They found the body of a baby, caked in dust, in the corner of a bombed-out room.
Cellphone images that a villager said that he shot, and seen by this reporter, showed two lines of about 20 bodies each laid out in the mosque, with the sounds of loud sobbing and villagers’ cries in the background.
An Afghan doctor who runs a clinic in a nearby village said he counted 50 to 60 bodies of civilians, most of them women and children and some of them his own patients, laid out in the village mosque on the day of the strike. The doctor, who works for a reputable nongovernmental organization here, at first gave his name but then asked that it be withheld because he feared retribution from Afghans feeding intelligence to the Americans.
The United States military, in a series of statements about the operation, has accused the villagers of spreading Taliban propaganda. Speaking on condition that their names not be used, some military officials have suggested that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites — and, by implication, that other investigators had been duped. But many villagers have connections to the Afghan police, NATO or the Americans through reconstruction projects, and they say they oppose the Taliban.
The district chief of Shindand, Lal Muhammad Umarzai, 45, said he personally counted 76 bodies that day, and he believed that more bodies were unearthed over the next two days, bringing the total to more than 90. Mr. Umarzai has been praised for bringing security to the district in the three months since his appointment and is on good terms with American and NATO forces in the region.
American military investigators said that they had interviewed him and that he had told them that he had no access to the village. But Mr. Umarzai said Taliban supporters came into the village in midmorning after the airstrikes, forcing him and the police to leave the village, but that later he was able to return and attend the burials.
The United Nations issued a statement pointing to evidence it considered conclusive that about 90 civilians were killed, some 75 of them women and children. Villagers and relatives said that the bodies were scattered in different locations; many of the victims were visiting Azizabad for a family memorial ceremony, and their relatives took their bodies back to their home villages for burial. This reporter did not visit the other villages but was given a detailed list of names and places where the remaining victims were buried.
Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them. Most of the village families were asleep when the shooting broke out, some sleeping out under mosquito nets in the yards of their houses, some inside the small domed rooms of their houses, lying close together on the floor, with up to 10 or 20 people in a room.
“I woke up when I heard shooting,” Zainab, a 26-year-old woman who doctors said was wounded in the attack, said in an interview in the Herat city hospital. “The shooting was very close to our house. We just stayed where we were because it was dangerous to go out. When the bombardment started there was smoke everywhere and we lay down to protect ourselves.”
Yakhakhan, 51, one of several men in the village working for a private security firm, and who uses just one name, said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor’s sons running.
“They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old,” he said. In the compound next to his, he said, four entire families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. “They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us,” he said of the Americans. “God will punish them.”
A policeman, Abdul Hakim, whose four children were killed and whose wife was paralyzed, said she had told him how an Afghan informer accompanying the American Special Operations forces had entered the compound after the bombardment and shot dead her brother, Reza Khan; her father; and an uncle as they were trying to help her. She said she had heard her father plead for help and ask the Afghan: “Are you a Muslim? Why are you doing this to us?” Then she heard shots, and her father did not speak after that, he said.
A United States military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, said in an e-mail message that she was unaware of such an allegation, and that the American military did not have Afghan civilian informers accompanying its forces during the mission. Soldiers treated wounded people at the scene, which indicated that the Laws of Armed Conflict were followed, she said.
No Taliban, Villagers Say
While the American forces reported they had come under fire upon entering the village, it is not clear from whom. The villagers and the relatives of some of the people killed in the raid insisted that none of them were Taliban and that there were no Taliban present in the village. Eight of the men killed were security guards supplied by Reza Khan to a private American security company and did possess weapons, said Gul Ahmed Khan, Reza Khan’s brother. Two other security guards and three members of the local Afghan police were detained by United States forces during the raid. Four of them were released a week later.
The Khan brothers are from the most prominent family in the village and were hosting the memorial ceremony for their brother, Taimoor Shah, who was killed in a business dispute a year ago. They had cards issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated each of them as a “coordinator for the U.S.S.F.” Another brother, Haji Abdul Rashid, blamed a business rival for falsely telling the Americans that their family supported the Taliban.
American military officials in Afghanistan and Washington have stood by their much lower body count. Capt. Christian Patterson, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, said that an investigating officer, a Special Forces major, visited the village after the airstrikes. Guided by aerial photographs, he visited six burial sites within a six-mile range of the attack; only one had any freshly dug graves, about 18 to 20 in total, Captain Patterson said. The 12-page investigative report does not indicate whether they were the graves of children or women. The officer did not interview villagers, he said.
Mr. Khan, whose house is just yards from the main graveyard, which contains 24 fresh graves, said no members of the American military had entered the village since Aug. 22. Villagers living around the graveyards would have seen them, he said.
The American military also said that it had found only two wounded people, a woman and a child, at the scene, and that in a survey of clinics, doctors and hospitals of the area it had found no other wounded.
U.S. Defends Operation
In a series of statements about the operation, the American military has said that extremists who entered the village after the bombardment encouraged villagers to change their story and inflate the number of dead. Yet the Afghan government and the United Nation have stood by the victims’ families and their accounts, not least because many of the families work for the Afghan government or reconstruction projects. The villagers say they oppose the Taliban and would not let them in the village.
“You can see our I.D. cards,” said a police officer, Muhammad Alam, 35, who was accused by the Americans of being a Taliban supporter and was detained for a week after the airstrikes, then released. “If the Taliban caught me, they would slaughter me.”
Two families in the village have lost men serving in the police during recent Taliban attacks. Reza Khan, whose house was the main target of the Special Operations Forces operation, and who was shot dead in the episode, was a wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport, and with a cellphone business in the town of Herat. A recent photo of him shows a clean-shaven, slightly portly man in a suit and tie — far from the typical look of a Taliban militant.
His brother, Haji Rashid, said the American forces “should question the people who gave them the wrong information.”
“We want them brought to trial and punished for what they have done,” he added.
His claim was supported by the district chief, Mr. Umarzai, who said, “The victims did not fire on the Americans.” He said he suspected that an informer falsely told the American forces that Taliban fighters were in the village and also staged the firefight. The gunmen first fired on the police checkpoint on the edge of the village that night, he said. “When the Americans came, they laid down heavy gunfire and then they left the area. Then the Americans called in airstrikes,” he said.
Villagers also challenged the American military’s claims that it successfully conducted its planned operation against a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and a group of his men.
A man claiming to be Mullah Sadiq called Radio Liberty several days after the raid and declared that he was alive and well and was never in the village of Azizabad that night. Reporters at the radio station, who asked not to be identified, said they knew his voice well and double checked the recording with residents of Shindand and they were sure the caller was Mullah Sadiq.
American military officials have said that the man who called the radio program was an imposter and that they are confident they killed their target.
A senior American officer who has been briefed on the military investigation’s findings said in an e-mail message: “I will simply say that the soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — reported what they saw and found at each building site as they looked for material, weapons, bodies. I cannot explain why later the numbers are so far apart.”
Members of the Afghan government investigation commission said that the Americans were just covering up the truth. “The Americans are guilty in this incident: it is much better for them to confess the reality rather than hiding the truth,” said Abdul Salam Qazizada, a member of Parliament and the government commission from Herat Province, where the village is located.
Villagers suggested that the soldiers just counted those who died in the open and did not try to dig under the rubble. A local journalist, Reza Shir Mohammadi, said that when he visited the village on the second day after the attack, women and children were still weeping at one collapsed house, saying they still had not found their mother and siblings.
The operation in Azizabad once again raises questions for the military about whether it is worth pursuing members of the Taliban with airstrikes inside a densely populated village where civilian casualties and property damage can be so high. A similar raid in the same district by American Special Forces in April 2007, which killed 57 people, led American and NATO commanders to tighten rules on calling in airstrikes on village houses.
“This is not fair to kill 90 people for one Mullah Sadiq,” said Mr. Umarzai, the district chief. “If they continue like this, they will lose the people’s confidence in the government and the coalition forces.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Afghanistan.
Showing posts with label civilian casualties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civilian casualties. Show all posts
NYT : Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Filed under
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by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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IHT : Gates apologizes for Afghan deaths
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Gates apologizes for Afghan deaths
By Thom Shanker | September 17, 2008
KABUL: The U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, expressed "sincere condolences and personal regrets" Wednesday for the deaths of Afghan civilians during recent airstrikes and announced a series of new measures designed to make amends when innocents are killed.
Gates accepted a proposal from Afghan officials to establish a permanent joint investigative group to rapidly determine the facts surrounding incidents of civilian casualties.
And he pledged that even before all the facts are known, the United States would apologize for civilian casualties and offer compensation to survivors.
"I think the key for us is, on those rare occasions when we do make a mistake, when there is an error, to apologize quickly, to compensate the victims quickly and then carry out the investigation," Gates said.
He said he ordered the new measures "so people know most of all that we care about them" and to prove that when there are civilian casualties, "We are sorry for that and we are going to make amends as quickly as possible."
The new policy is a clear indication that the United States and its NATO allies fear they risk losing the support of the Afghan people, and of the world community, for the stabilization mission here.
Even so, senior Pentagon officials say that incidents of civilian casualties are trumpeted by the Taliban and Al Qaeda as proof of American injustice and that many of those reports are exaggerated or false.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the idea to create a permanent joint investigative body for incidents of civilian casualties was raised by senior Afghan officials and that Gates, during a day of meetings here Wednesday, officially agreed to the plan.
In several recent cases of civilian casualties, separate investigations by the Afghan government, U.S. military and international organizations have returned with conflicting assessments.
On his fourth visit to Afghanistan as defense secretary, Gates acknowledged the need for more troops here.
On Tuesday, the senior American commander, General David McKiernan, said for the first time that he needed three combat brigades of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers each over and above the one extra battalion of 500 to 1,500 soldiers and one extra brigade that President George W. Bush has ordered to arrive here by early next year.
"My expectation is that we will be able to meet the requirements the commanders have here during the course of 2009," Gates said.
But he did not give exact figures for reinforcements, nor did he say whether any additional increases would come from the American military or if allies would be pressed to fill the short-fall in troops identified by McKiernan.
The defense secretary gave an impassioned restatement of the American commitment to the Afghanistan conflict, which often has been described as the forgotten war since vastly more resources were committed to U.S. forces in Iraq.
"You have seen the face of the enemy, the ruthlessness and the determination," he said.
"Let there be no doubt that the United States and our many partners around the world are just as determined to help you win the peace and freedom you deserve."
By Thom Shanker | September 17, 2008
KABUL: The U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, expressed "sincere condolences and personal regrets" Wednesday for the deaths of Afghan civilians during recent airstrikes and announced a series of new measures designed to make amends when innocents are killed.
Gates accepted a proposal from Afghan officials to establish a permanent joint investigative group to rapidly determine the facts surrounding incidents of civilian casualties.
And he pledged that even before all the facts are known, the United States would apologize for civilian casualties and offer compensation to survivors.
"I think the key for us is, on those rare occasions when we do make a mistake, when there is an error, to apologize quickly, to compensate the victims quickly and then carry out the investigation," Gates said.
He said he ordered the new measures "so people know most of all that we care about them" and to prove that when there are civilian casualties, "We are sorry for that and we are going to make amends as quickly as possible."
The new policy is a clear indication that the United States and its NATO allies fear they risk losing the support of the Afghan people, and of the world community, for the stabilization mission here.
Even so, senior Pentagon officials say that incidents of civilian casualties are trumpeted by the Taliban and Al Qaeda as proof of American injustice and that many of those reports are exaggerated or false.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the idea to create a permanent joint investigative body for incidents of civilian casualties was raised by senior Afghan officials and that Gates, during a day of meetings here Wednesday, officially agreed to the plan.
In several recent cases of civilian casualties, separate investigations by the Afghan government, U.S. military and international organizations have returned with conflicting assessments.
On his fourth visit to Afghanistan as defense secretary, Gates acknowledged the need for more troops here.
On Tuesday, the senior American commander, General David McKiernan, said for the first time that he needed three combat brigades of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers each over and above the one extra battalion of 500 to 1,500 soldiers and one extra brigade that President George W. Bush has ordered to arrive here by early next year.
"My expectation is that we will be able to meet the requirements the commanders have here during the course of 2009," Gates said.
But he did not give exact figures for reinforcements, nor did he say whether any additional increases would come from the American military or if allies would be pressed to fill the short-fall in troops identified by McKiernan.
The defense secretary gave an impassioned restatement of the American commitment to the Afghanistan conflict, which often has been described as the forgotten war since vastly more resources were committed to U.S. forces in Iraq.
"You have seen the face of the enemy, the ruthlessness and the determination," he said.
"Let there be no doubt that the United States and our many partners around the world are just as determined to help you win the peace and freedom you deserve."
Filed under
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on Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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ABC : Afghanistan: US Killed Civilians After False Tip
Monday, September 15, 2008
Afghanistan: US Killed Civilians After False Tip
Afghan government says US killed civilians based on false information
By JASON STRAZIUSO | Associated Press Writer | September 14, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan: An American bombing that killed up to 90 Afghan civilians last month was based on false information provided by a rival tribe and did not kill a single Taliban fighter, the president's spokesman said Sunday.
The claim contradicted a U.S. contention that the Aug. 22 raid on the western village of Azizabad killed up to 35 Taliban fighters.
"There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces," Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the U.S. military false intelligence that led to the bombardment, the Interior Ministry has said.
An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a preliminary U.N. report.
The bombing strained the U.S.-Afghan relationship but the countries remain committed allies, Hamidzada said.
The operation, conducted by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, targeted Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members — the reason the U.S. military recovered weapons after the battle, Hamidzada said.
The U.S. has said its forces were fired on first during a raid that targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq. But villagers say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of U.S. forces. The coalition has declined to comment.
"How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces," Hamidzada said.
"Not a single Talib was killed," he added. "So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials, total denials."
The U.S. at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed. A formal military investigation found that the operation killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians.
But after video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, the U.S. said it would send a one-star general from the United States to investigate the strike.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Friday three suspects had been arrested for allegedly giving false information to the American military, but it did not say who they were. Hamidzada and the Interior Ministry spokesman have also declined to say who was arrested.
A U.S. military spokeswoman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
The top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, has said the U.S. coalition, U.N. and Afghan government would hold a joint investigation, but Hamidzada said the Afghan government would not take part.
"The Afghan government did not agree to a three-way investigation, because we have already completed two investigations," he said.
"There is no need to go around to the village and actually harass people one more time and remind them of the terrible ordeal they went through. We have the facts straight, we have all the information."
Karzai has long pleaded with international forces to reduce the number of civilians killed in operations, and now the government is studying its "status of force" agreement governing U.S. and NATO operations in the country. Afghan officials are also reviewing the use of airstrikes by international forces.
Hamidzada said Azizabad strained a relationship between friends.
"We can be critical of one particular issue but we are still partners," he said, adding there are ways of killing Taliban without hurting civilians.
"If we only rely on air raids, we know these are not accurate, we know the potential for civilian casualties is extremely high," he said. "So there has to be a combination of ground forces and the use of Afghan military forces. But you cannot just conduct operations from the air alone, because you hurt civilians."
In violence Sunday, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy carrying Afghan doctors working for the United Nations in southern Afghanistan, killing two doctors and their driver, officials said.
The U.N. said it was trying to determine whether the bombing was an explicit attack on the world body or if the doctors were a target of opportunity.
Also in the Afghan south, a British soldier was killed in an explosion on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense said.
Elsewhere, seven children died after ordnance they were playing with exploded, and militants ambushed and killed seven police, officials said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Afghan government says US killed civilians based on false information
By JASON STRAZIUSO | Associated Press Writer | September 14, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan: An American bombing that killed up to 90 Afghan civilians last month was based on false information provided by a rival tribe and did not kill a single Taliban fighter, the president's spokesman said Sunday.
The claim contradicted a U.S. contention that the Aug. 22 raid on the western village of Azizabad killed up to 35 Taliban fighters.
"There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces," Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the U.S. military false intelligence that led to the bombardment, the Interior Ministry has said.
An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a preliminary U.N. report.
The bombing strained the U.S.-Afghan relationship but the countries remain committed allies, Hamidzada said.
The operation, conducted by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, targeted Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members — the reason the U.S. military recovered weapons after the battle, Hamidzada said.
The U.S. has said its forces were fired on first during a raid that targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq. But villagers say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of U.S. forces. The coalition has declined to comment.
"How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces," Hamidzada said.
"Not a single Talib was killed," he added. "So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials, total denials."
The U.S. at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed. A formal military investigation found that the operation killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians.
But after video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, the U.S. said it would send a one-star general from the United States to investigate the strike.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Friday three suspects had been arrested for allegedly giving false information to the American military, but it did not say who they were. Hamidzada and the Interior Ministry spokesman have also declined to say who was arrested.
A U.S. military spokeswoman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
The top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, has said the U.S. coalition, U.N. and Afghan government would hold a joint investigation, but Hamidzada said the Afghan government would not take part.
"The Afghan government did not agree to a three-way investigation, because we have already completed two investigations," he said.
"There is no need to go around to the village and actually harass people one more time and remind them of the terrible ordeal they went through. We have the facts straight, we have all the information."
Karzai has long pleaded with international forces to reduce the number of civilians killed in operations, and now the government is studying its "status of force" agreement governing U.S. and NATO operations in the country. Afghan officials are also reviewing the use of airstrikes by international forces.
Hamidzada said Azizabad strained a relationship between friends.
"We can be critical of one particular issue but we are still partners," he said, adding there are ways of killing Taliban without hurting civilians.
"If we only rely on air raids, we know these are not accurate, we know the potential for civilian casualties is extremely high," he said. "So there has to be a combination of ground forces and the use of Afghan military forces. But you cannot just conduct operations from the air alone, because you hurt civilians."
In violence Sunday, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy carrying Afghan doctors working for the United Nations in southern Afghanistan, killing two doctors and their driver, officials said.
The U.N. said it was trying to determine whether the bombing was an explicit attack on the world body or if the doctors were a target of opportunity.
Also in the Afghan south, a British soldier was killed in an explosion on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense said.
Elsewhere, seven children died after ordnance they were playing with exploded, and militants ambushed and killed seven police, officials said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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NYT : Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
By CARLOTTA GALL | September 8, 2008
AZIZABAD, Afghanistan — To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.
Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.
For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”
“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.
The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.
The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad on Thursday to pay his respects to the mourners, condemning the strikes, and vowing to arrest an Afghan he says misled American forces with false intelligence.
President Bush expressed his regrets and sympathy in a call to Mr. Karzai on Wednesday. And General McKiernan has issued several statements voicing sorrow for civilian casualties.
The Afghan government is demanding changes in the accords defining the United States military engagement in Afghanistan, in particular ending American military raids on villages and halting the detention of Afghan citizens.
“People are sick of hearing there is another case of civilian casualties,” one presidential aide said.
Differing Accounts
The accounts of the airstrike’s aftermath given by Afghans and Americans could not be further apart.
A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves. Thirteen of the graves were so small they could hold only children; another 13 were marked with stones in the way that Afghans identify women’s graves.
Villagers questioned separately identified relatives in the graves; their names matched the accounts given by elders of the village of those who died in each of eight bomb-damaged houses and where they were buried. They were quite specific about who was killed in the airstrikes and did not count those who died for other reasons; one of the fresh graves, they said, belonged to a man who was killed when villagers demonstrated against the Afghan Army on Aug. 23.
At the battle scene, shell craters dotted the courtyards and shrapnel had gouged holes in the walls. Rooms had collapsed and mud bricks and torn clothing lay in uneven mounds where people had been digging. In two places blood was splattered on a ceiling and a wall. An old woman pushed forward with a cauldron full of jagged metal bomb fragments, and a youth presented cellphone video he said was shot on the day of the bombing; there was no time stamp.
The smell of bodies lingered in one compound, causing villagers to start digging with spades. They found the body of a baby, caked in dust, in the corner of a bombed-out room.
Cellphone images that a villager said that he shot, and seen by this reporter, showed two lines of about 20 bodies each laid out in the mosque, with the sounds of loud sobbing and villagers’ cries in the background.
An Afghan doctor who runs a clinic in a nearby village said he counted 50 to 60 bodies of civilians, most of them women and children and some of them his own patients, laid out in the village mosque on the day of the strike. The doctor, who works for a reputable nongovernmental organization here, at first gave his name but then asked that it be withheld because he feared retribution from Afghans feeding intelligence to the Americans.
The United States military, in a series of statements about the operation, has accused the villagers of spreading Taliban propaganda. Speaking on condition that their names not be used, some military officials have suggested that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites — and, by implication, that other investigators had been duped. But many villagers have connections to the Afghan police, NATO or the Americans through reconstruction projects, and they say they oppose the Taliban.
The district chief of Shindand, Lal Muhammad Umarzai, 45, said he personally counted 76 bodies that day, and he believed that more bodies were unearthed over the next two days, bringing the total to more than 90. Mr. Umarzai has been praised for bringing security to the district in the three months since his appointment and is on good terms with American and NATO forces in the region.
American military investigators said that they had interviewed him and that he had told them that he had no access to the village. But Mr. Umarzai said Taliban supporters came into the village in midmorning after the airstrikes, forcing him and the police to leave the village, but that later he was able to return and attend the burials.
The United Nations issued a statement pointing to evidence it considered conclusive that about 90 civilians were killed, some 75 of them women and children. Villagers and relatives said that the bodies were scattered in different locations; many of the victims were visiting Azizabad for a family memorial ceremony, and their relatives took their bodies back to their home villages for burial. This reporter did not visit the other villages but was given a detailed list of names and places where the remaining victims were buried.
Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them. Most of the village families were asleep when the shooting broke out, some sleeping out under mosquito nets in the yards of their houses, some inside the small domed rooms of their houses, lying close together on the floor, with up to 10 or 20 people in a room.
“I woke up when I heard shooting,” Zainab, a 26-year-old woman who doctors said was wounded in the attack, said in an interview in the Herat city hospital. “The shooting was very close to our house. We just stayed where we were because it was dangerous to go out. When the bombardment started there was smoke everywhere and we lay down to protect ourselves.”
Yakhakhan, 51, one of several men in the village working for a private security firm, and who uses just one name, said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor’s sons running.
“They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old,” he said. In the compound next to his, he said, four entire families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. “They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us,” he said of the Americans. “God will punish them.”
A policeman, Abdul Hakim, whose four children were killed and whose wife was paralyzed, said she had told him how an Afghan informer accompanying the American Special Operations forces had entered the compound after the bombardment and shot dead her brother, Reza Khan; her father; and an uncle as they were trying to help her. She said she had heard her father plead for help and ask the Afghan: “Are you a Muslim? Why are you doing this to us?” Then she heard shots, and her father did not speak after that, he said.
A United States military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, said in an e-mail message that she was unaware of such an allegation, and that the American military did not have Afghan civilian informers accompanying its forces during the mission. Soldiers treated wounded people at the scene, which indicated that the Laws of Armed Conflict were followed, she said.
No Taliban, Villagers Say
While the American forces reported they had come under fire upon entering the village, it is not clear from whom. The villagers and the relatives of some of the people killed in the raid insisted that none of them were Taliban and that there were no Taliban present in the village. Eight of the men killed were security guards supplied by Reza Khan to a private American security company and did possess weapons, said Gul Ahmed Khan, Reza Khan’s brother. Two other security guards and three members of the local Afghan police were detained by United States forces during the raid. Four of them were released a week later.
The Khan brothers are from the most prominent family in the village and were hosting the memorial ceremony for their brother, Taimoor Shah, who was killed in a business dispute a year ago. They had cards issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated each of them as a “coordinator for the U.S.S.F.” Another brother, Haji Abdul Rashid, blamed a business rival for falsely telling the Americans that their family supported the Taliban.
American military officials in Afghanistan and Washington have stood by their much lower body count. Capt. Christian Patterson, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, said that an investigating officer, a Special Forces major, visited the village after the airstrikes. Guided by aerial photographs, he visited six burial sites within a six-mile range of the attack; only one had any freshly dug graves, about 18 to 20 in total, Captain Patterson said. The 12-page investigative report does not indicate whether they were the graves of children or women. The officer did not interview villagers, he said.
Mr. Khan, whose house is just yards from the main graveyard, which contains 24 fresh graves, said no members of the American military had entered the village since Aug. 22. Villagers living around the graveyards would have seen them, he said.
The American military also said that it had found only two wounded people, a woman and a child, at the scene, and that in a survey of clinics, doctors and hospitals of the area it had found no other wounded.
U.S. Defends Operation
In a series of statements about the operation, the American military has said that extremists who entered the village after the bombardment encouraged villagers to change their story and inflate the number of dead. Yet the Afghan government and the United Nation have stood by the victims’ families and their accounts, not least because many of the families work for the Afghan government or reconstruction projects. The villagers say they oppose the Taliban and would not let them in the village.
“You can see our I.D. cards,” said a police officer, Muhammad Alam, 35, who was accused by the Americans of being a Taliban supporter and was detained for a week after the airstrikes, then released. “If the Taliban caught me, they would slaughter me.”
Two families in the village have lost men serving in the police during recent Taliban attacks. Reza Khan, whose house was the main target of the Special Operations Forces operation, and who was shot dead in the episode, was a wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport, and with a cellphone business in the town of Herat. A recent photo of him shows a clean-shaven, slightly portly man in a suit and tie — far from the typical look of a Taliban militant.
His brother, Haji Rashid, said the American forces “should question the people who gave them the wrong information.”
“We want them brought to trial and punished for what they have done,” he added.
His claim was supported by the district chief, Mr. Umarzai, who said, “The victims did not fire on the Americans.” He said he suspected that an informer falsely told the American forces that Taliban fighters were in the village and also staged the firefight. The gunmen first fired on the police checkpoint on the edge of the village that night, he said. “When the Americans came, they laid down heavy gunfire and then they left the area. Then the Americans called in airstrikes,” he said.
Villagers also challenged the American military’s claims that it successfully conducted its planned operation against a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and a group of his men.
A man claiming to be Mullah Sadiq called Radio Liberty several days after the raid and declared that he was alive and well and was never in the village of Azizabad that night. Reporters at the radio station, who asked not to be identified, said they knew his voice well and double checked the recording with residents of Shindand and they were sure the caller was Mullah Sadiq.
American military officials have said that the man who called the radio program was an imposter and that they are confident they killed their target.
A senior American officer who has been briefed on the military investigation’s findings said in an e-mail message: “I will simply say that the soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — reported what they saw and found at each building site as they looked for material, weapons, bodies. I cannot explain why later the numbers are so far apart.”
Members of the Afghan government investigation commission said that the Americans were just covering up the truth. “The Americans are guilty in this incident: it is much better for them to confess the reality rather than hiding the truth,” said Abdul Salam Qazizada, a member of Parliament and the government commission from Herat Province, where the village is located.
Villagers suggested that the soldiers just counted those who died in the open and did not try to dig under the rubble. A local journalist, Reza Shir Mohammadi, said that when he visited the village on the second day after the attack, women and children were still weeping at one collapsed house, saying they still had not found their mother and siblings.
The operation in Azizabad once again raises questions for the military about whether it is worth pursuing members of the Taliban with airstrikes inside a densely populated village where civilian casualties and property damage can be so high. A similar raid in the same district by American Special Forces in April 2007, which killed 57 people, led American and NATO commanders to tighten rules on calling in airstrikes on village houses.
“This is not fair to kill 90 people for one Mullah Sadiq,” said Mr. Umarzai, the district chief. “If they continue like this, they will lose the people’s confidence in the government and the coalition forces.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Afghanistan.
By CARLOTTA GALL | September 8, 2008
AZIZABAD, Afghanistan — To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.
Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.
For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”
“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.
The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.
The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad on Thursday to pay his respects to the mourners, condemning the strikes, and vowing to arrest an Afghan he says misled American forces with false intelligence.
President Bush expressed his regrets and sympathy in a call to Mr. Karzai on Wednesday. And General McKiernan has issued several statements voicing sorrow for civilian casualties.
The Afghan government is demanding changes in the accords defining the United States military engagement in Afghanistan, in particular ending American military raids on villages and halting the detention of Afghan citizens.
“People are sick of hearing there is another case of civilian casualties,” one presidential aide said.
Differing Accounts
The accounts of the airstrike’s aftermath given by Afghans and Americans could not be further apart.
A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves. Thirteen of the graves were so small they could hold only children; another 13 were marked with stones in the way that Afghans identify women’s graves.
Villagers questioned separately identified relatives in the graves; their names matched the accounts given by elders of the village of those who died in each of eight bomb-damaged houses and where they were buried. They were quite specific about who was killed in the airstrikes and did not count those who died for other reasons; one of the fresh graves, they said, belonged to a man who was killed when villagers demonstrated against the Afghan Army on Aug. 23.
At the battle scene, shell craters dotted the courtyards and shrapnel had gouged holes in the walls. Rooms had collapsed and mud bricks and torn clothing lay in uneven mounds where people had been digging. In two places blood was splattered on a ceiling and a wall. An old woman pushed forward with a cauldron full of jagged metal bomb fragments, and a youth presented cellphone video he said was shot on the day of the bombing; there was no time stamp.
The smell of bodies lingered in one compound, causing villagers to start digging with spades. They found the body of a baby, caked in dust, in the corner of a bombed-out room.
Cellphone images that a villager said that he shot, and seen by this reporter, showed two lines of about 20 bodies each laid out in the mosque, with the sounds of loud sobbing and villagers’ cries in the background.
An Afghan doctor who runs a clinic in a nearby village said he counted 50 to 60 bodies of civilians, most of them women and children and some of them his own patients, laid out in the village mosque on the day of the strike. The doctor, who works for a reputable nongovernmental organization here, at first gave his name but then asked that it be withheld because he feared retribution from Afghans feeding intelligence to the Americans.
The United States military, in a series of statements about the operation, has accused the villagers of spreading Taliban propaganda. Speaking on condition that their names not be used, some military officials have suggested that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites — and, by implication, that other investigators had been duped. But many villagers have connections to the Afghan police, NATO or the Americans through reconstruction projects, and they say they oppose the Taliban.
The district chief of Shindand, Lal Muhammad Umarzai, 45, said he personally counted 76 bodies that day, and he believed that more bodies were unearthed over the next two days, bringing the total to more than 90. Mr. Umarzai has been praised for bringing security to the district in the three months since his appointment and is on good terms with American and NATO forces in the region.
American military investigators said that they had interviewed him and that he had told them that he had no access to the village. But Mr. Umarzai said Taliban supporters came into the village in midmorning after the airstrikes, forcing him and the police to leave the village, but that later he was able to return and attend the burials.
The United Nations issued a statement pointing to evidence it considered conclusive that about 90 civilians were killed, some 75 of them women and children. Villagers and relatives said that the bodies were scattered in different locations; many of the victims were visiting Azizabad for a family memorial ceremony, and their relatives took their bodies back to their home villages for burial. This reporter did not visit the other villages but was given a detailed list of names and places where the remaining victims were buried.
Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them. Most of the village families were asleep when the shooting broke out, some sleeping out under mosquito nets in the yards of their houses, some inside the small domed rooms of their houses, lying close together on the floor, with up to 10 or 20 people in a room.
“I woke up when I heard shooting,” Zainab, a 26-year-old woman who doctors said was wounded in the attack, said in an interview in the Herat city hospital. “The shooting was very close to our house. We just stayed where we were because it was dangerous to go out. When the bombardment started there was smoke everywhere and we lay down to protect ourselves.”
Yakhakhan, 51, one of several men in the village working for a private security firm, and who uses just one name, said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor’s sons running.
“They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old,” he said. In the compound next to his, he said, four entire families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. “They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us,” he said of the Americans. “God will punish them.”
A policeman, Abdul Hakim, whose four children were killed and whose wife was paralyzed, said she had told him how an Afghan informer accompanying the American Special Operations forces had entered the compound after the bombardment and shot dead her brother, Reza Khan; her father; and an uncle as they were trying to help her. She said she had heard her father plead for help and ask the Afghan: “Are you a Muslim? Why are you doing this to us?” Then she heard shots, and her father did not speak after that, he said.
A United States military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, said in an e-mail message that she was unaware of such an allegation, and that the American military did not have Afghan civilian informers accompanying its forces during the mission. Soldiers treated wounded people at the scene, which indicated that the Laws of Armed Conflict were followed, she said.
No Taliban, Villagers Say
While the American forces reported they had come under fire upon entering the village, it is not clear from whom. The villagers and the relatives of some of the people killed in the raid insisted that none of them were Taliban and that there were no Taliban present in the village. Eight of the men killed were security guards supplied by Reza Khan to a private American security company and did possess weapons, said Gul Ahmed Khan, Reza Khan’s brother. Two other security guards and three members of the local Afghan police were detained by United States forces during the raid. Four of them were released a week later.
The Khan brothers are from the most prominent family in the village and were hosting the memorial ceremony for their brother, Taimoor Shah, who was killed in a business dispute a year ago. They had cards issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated each of them as a “coordinator for the U.S.S.F.” Another brother, Haji Abdul Rashid, blamed a business rival for falsely telling the Americans that their family supported the Taliban.
American military officials in Afghanistan and Washington have stood by their much lower body count. Capt. Christian Patterson, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, said that an investigating officer, a Special Forces major, visited the village after the airstrikes. Guided by aerial photographs, he visited six burial sites within a six-mile range of the attack; only one had any freshly dug graves, about 18 to 20 in total, Captain Patterson said. The 12-page investigative report does not indicate whether they were the graves of children or women. The officer did not interview villagers, he said.
Mr. Khan, whose house is just yards from the main graveyard, which contains 24 fresh graves, said no members of the American military had entered the village since Aug. 22. Villagers living around the graveyards would have seen them, he said.
The American military also said that it had found only two wounded people, a woman and a child, at the scene, and that in a survey of clinics, doctors and hospitals of the area it had found no other wounded.
U.S. Defends Operation
In a series of statements about the operation, the American military has said that extremists who entered the village after the bombardment encouraged villagers to change their story and inflate the number of dead. Yet the Afghan government and the United Nation have stood by the victims’ families and their accounts, not least because many of the families work for the Afghan government or reconstruction projects. The villagers say they oppose the Taliban and would not let them in the village.
“You can see our I.D. cards,” said a police officer, Muhammad Alam, 35, who was accused by the Americans of being a Taliban supporter and was detained for a week after the airstrikes, then released. “If the Taliban caught me, they would slaughter me.”
Two families in the village have lost men serving in the police during recent Taliban attacks. Reza Khan, whose house was the main target of the Special Operations Forces operation, and who was shot dead in the episode, was a wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport, and with a cellphone business in the town of Herat. A recent photo of him shows a clean-shaven, slightly portly man in a suit and tie — far from the typical look of a Taliban militant.
His brother, Haji Rashid, said the American forces “should question the people who gave them the wrong information.”
“We want them brought to trial and punished for what they have done,” he added.
His claim was supported by the district chief, Mr. Umarzai, who said, “The victims did not fire on the Americans.” He said he suspected that an informer falsely told the American forces that Taliban fighters were in the village and also staged the firefight. The gunmen first fired on the police checkpoint on the edge of the village that night, he said. “When the Americans came, they laid down heavy gunfire and then they left the area. Then the Americans called in airstrikes,” he said.
Villagers also challenged the American military’s claims that it successfully conducted its planned operation against a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and a group of his men.
A man claiming to be Mullah Sadiq called Radio Liberty several days after the raid and declared that he was alive and well and was never in the village of Azizabad that night. Reporters at the radio station, who asked not to be identified, said they knew his voice well and double checked the recording with residents of Shindand and they were sure the caller was Mullah Sadiq.
American military officials have said that the man who called the radio program was an imposter and that they are confident they killed their target.
A senior American officer who has been briefed on the military investigation’s findings said in an e-mail message: “I will simply say that the soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — reported what they saw and found at each building site as they looked for material, weapons, bodies. I cannot explain why later the numbers are so far apart.”
Members of the Afghan government investigation commission said that the Americans were just covering up the truth. “The Americans are guilty in this incident: it is much better for them to confess the reality rather than hiding the truth,” said Abdul Salam Qazizada, a member of Parliament and the government commission from Herat Province, where the village is located.
Villagers suggested that the soldiers just counted those who died in the open and did not try to dig under the rubble. A local journalist, Reza Shir Mohammadi, said that when he visited the village on the second day after the attack, women and children were still weeping at one collapsed house, saying they still had not found their mother and siblings.
The operation in Azizabad once again raises questions for the military about whether it is worth pursuing members of the Taliban with airstrikes inside a densely populated village where civilian casualties and property damage can be so high. A similar raid in the same district by American Special Forces in April 2007, which killed 57 people, led American and NATO commanders to tighten rules on calling in airstrikes on village houses.
“This is not fair to kill 90 people for one Mullah Sadiq,” said Mr. Umarzai, the district chief. “If they continue like this, they will lose the people’s confidence in the government and the coalition forces.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Afghanistan.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
airstrike,
Azizabad,
Carlotta Gall,
civilian casualties,
NATO
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, September 09, 2008
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AP : Pakistan accuses foreign troops in civilian deaths
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Pakistan accuses foreign troops in civilian deaths
September 3, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's government says a cross-border raid involving U.S.-led or NATO forces killed several civilians in a village near the Afghan border.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry described the raid in the South Waziristan region as a ground attack supported by air assets based in Afghanistan.
It said the attack caused "immense loss of civilian life" and called it a "gross violation" of Pakistani territory.
The statement said such strikes undermine joint efforts to fight terrorism.
South Waziristan is considered a militant stronghold, and the U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crackdown on insurgents who use it as a base to stage attacks inside Afghanistan.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Women and children were among 15 people killed in an attack Wednesday involving U.S.-led forces in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan, officials and a resident said.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said it had "no information to give" about the alleged operation, while a spokesman for NATO troops there denied any involvement.
The United States and Pakistan, allies in the war on terror, have had tensions over cross-border attacks, including a series of suspected American missile strikes which have killed two senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistani territory this year.
Officials gave differing accounts of the pre-dawn raid in the South Waziristan region, part of the tribal belt where officials suspect Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding. It was unclear whether any militant leaders had been killed or captured.
The governor of North West Frontier Province, the chief administrator for the tribal belt, said three coalition helicopter gunships and commandos carried out an "outrageous" attack on a village.
"At least 20 innocent civilians of Pakistan including women and children were martyred," Gov. Owais Ahmed Ghani said in a statement.
However, Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told reporters in Lahore that homes near the border had been attacked by NATO aircraft and made no mention of ground forces.
Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said it also had reports that 15 people, including women and children, died in the attack near Angoor Ada, a town in South Waziristan.
Officials said both the army and the Foreign Ministry were investigating.
Habib Khan Wazir, an area resident, said the incident occurred in a village called Musa Nikow. Wazir said he heard the sound of helicopters and then an exchange of fire between the assailants and other residents.
"Later, I saw 15 bodies inside and outside two homes. They had been shot in the head," Wazir told an AP reporter by telephone.
He said the dead included women and children and that all were civilians. He claimed that the attackers were American and Afghan troops, and didn't know if any of them had been wounded.
"There was darkness at the time when the Americans came and killed our innocent people," Wazir said. "We would have not allowed them to go back alive if they had come to our village in daylight."
He said the funerals of the slain people would be held in the village later Wednesday.
The U.S. embassy in Islamabad declined to comment.
American officials say Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghan border have turned into havens for al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants involved in attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. South Waziristan is the base for Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud.
The U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crack down on the militancy inside its territory, and there have been debates in Washington over how far the U.S. can go in carrying out its own strikes.
AP reported last year that U.S. rules of engagement allowed ground forces to go a little over six miles into Pakistan when in hot pursuit, and when forces were targeted or fired on by the enemy. U.S. rules allow aircraft to go 10 miles into Pakistan air space.
Pakistani officials protest that cross-border strikes are a violation of their sovereignty. They plead with U.S. and NATO commanders to share intelligence and allow Pakistani troops to carry out all raids on their territory.
Relations took a hit earlier this year when Pakistan said coalition aircraft bombed one of its border posts, killing 11 troops.
However, the civilian government has also taken a tough line against militants, and sought to persuade a skeptical public that security forces are fighting Islamic extremists for Pakistan's sake, not for Washington.
Ghani, who was appointed governor under ousted ex-President Pervez Musharraf and is expected to be replaced shortly, said Wednesday's incident was a "direct assault" on Pakistan.
"The people of Pakistan expect that the armed forces of Pakistan would rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply," he said in a statement.
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
September 3, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's government says a cross-border raid involving U.S.-led or NATO forces killed several civilians in a village near the Afghan border.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry described the raid in the South Waziristan region as a ground attack supported by air assets based in Afghanistan.
It said the attack caused "immense loss of civilian life" and called it a "gross violation" of Pakistani territory.
The statement said such strikes undermine joint efforts to fight terrorism.
South Waziristan is considered a militant stronghold, and the U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crackdown on insurgents who use it as a base to stage attacks inside Afghanistan.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Women and children were among 15 people killed in an attack Wednesday involving U.S.-led forces in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan, officials and a resident said.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said it had "no information to give" about the alleged operation, while a spokesman for NATO troops there denied any involvement.
The United States and Pakistan, allies in the war on terror, have had tensions over cross-border attacks, including a series of suspected American missile strikes which have killed two senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistani territory this year.
Officials gave differing accounts of the pre-dawn raid in the South Waziristan region, part of the tribal belt where officials suspect Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding. It was unclear whether any militant leaders had been killed or captured.
The governor of North West Frontier Province, the chief administrator for the tribal belt, said three coalition helicopter gunships and commandos carried out an "outrageous" attack on a village.
"At least 20 innocent civilians of Pakistan including women and children were martyred," Gov. Owais Ahmed Ghani said in a statement.
However, Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told reporters in Lahore that homes near the border had been attacked by NATO aircraft and made no mention of ground forces.
Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said it also had reports that 15 people, including women and children, died in the attack near Angoor Ada, a town in South Waziristan.
Officials said both the army and the Foreign Ministry were investigating.
Habib Khan Wazir, an area resident, said the incident occurred in a village called Musa Nikow. Wazir said he heard the sound of helicopters and then an exchange of fire between the assailants and other residents.
"Later, I saw 15 bodies inside and outside two homes. They had been shot in the head," Wazir told an AP reporter by telephone.
He said the dead included women and children and that all were civilians. He claimed that the attackers were American and Afghan troops, and didn't know if any of them had been wounded.
"There was darkness at the time when the Americans came and killed our innocent people," Wazir said. "We would have not allowed them to go back alive if they had come to our village in daylight."
He said the funerals of the slain people would be held in the village later Wednesday.
The U.S. embassy in Islamabad declined to comment.
American officials say Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghan border have turned into havens for al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants involved in attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. South Waziristan is the base for Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud.
The U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crack down on the militancy inside its territory, and there have been debates in Washington over how far the U.S. can go in carrying out its own strikes.
AP reported last year that U.S. rules of engagement allowed ground forces to go a little over six miles into Pakistan when in hot pursuit, and when forces were targeted or fired on by the enemy. U.S. rules allow aircraft to go 10 miles into Pakistan air space.
Pakistani officials protest that cross-border strikes are a violation of their sovereignty. They plead with U.S. and NATO commanders to share intelligence and allow Pakistani troops to carry out all raids on their territory.
Relations took a hit earlier this year when Pakistan said coalition aircraft bombed one of its border posts, killing 11 troops.
However, the civilian government has also taken a tough line against militants, and sought to persuade a skeptical public that security forces are fighting Islamic extremists for Pakistan's sake, not for Washington.
Ghani, who was appointed governor under ousted ex-President Pervez Musharraf and is expected to be replaced shortly, said Wednesday's incident was a "direct assault" on Pakistan.
"The people of Pakistan expect that the armed forces of Pakistan would rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply," he said in a statement.
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
civilian casualties,
NATO,
Pakistan
by Winter Patriot
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IHT : U.S. airstrike did kill 90 civilians, UN finds
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
U.S. airstrike did kill 90 civilians, UN finds
By Carlotta Gall | August 27, 2008
KABUL: A UN human rights team in Afghanistan has found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians - among them 60 children - were killed in airstrikes on a village in the western province of Herat on Friday, the United Nations mission in Kabul said.
If the assertion proved correct, the attack would have killed more civilians than any U.S. military operation in Afghanistan since 2001.
The UN statement added pressure on the U.S. military, which has maintained that only 25 militants and 5 civilians were killed in the airstrikes. It ordered an investigation into the strike after Afghan officials reported the higher civilian death toll.
The UN team visited the scene and interviewed survivors and local officials and elders, getting a name, age and gender of each person reported killed. The team reported that 15 people had been wounded in the airstrikes.
The numbers closely matched those given by a government commission sent from Kabul to investigate the bombing, which put the total dead at up to 95.
Mohammad Iqbal Safi, head of the parliamentary defense committee and a member of the government commission, said the 60 children were aged from 3 months to 16 years old and that they were killed as they slept. "It was a heartbreaking scene," he said.
The death toll may increase. Heavy lifting equipment has been called in to uncover all the remains, said a Western official who had seen the UN report.
"This is a matter of grave concern to the United Nations," Kai Eide, the UN special representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement. "It is vital that the international and Afghan military forces thoroughly review the conduct of this operation in order to prevent a repeat of this tragic incident."
The bombing occurred around midnight, the UN statement said.
"Foreign and Afghan military personnel entered the village of Nawabad in the Azizabad area of Shindand District," it said. "Military operations lasted several hours during which airstrikes were called in.
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident," with seven or eight houses "having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others."
Safi, the member of Parliament, said the villagers had been preparing for a ceremony the next morning in memory of a man who died some time before. Extended families from two tribes were visiting the village and there were lights of fires as the adults were cooking food for the ceremony, he said.
How the military came to call in airstrikes on a civilian gathering is unclear. Two members of Parliament, Safi and Maulavi Gul Ahmad, who is from the area, said the villagers blamed tribal enemies for giving the military false intelligence on foreign fighters gathering in the village.
Ahmad blamed the U.S. Special Forces, who are training the Afghan Army and were present in the joint operation. "I can't blame the Afghan National Army for the incident, as they had no authority for leading the operation," he said.
The government commission met with the commander of U.S. forces in Herat Province, but he declined to answer their questions, saying the U.S. military was conducting its own investigation, Afghan government officials said.
The Defense Department said it would not have a separate statement on the bombing beyond the one issued by U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan. That statement said in part that the operation killed 25 militants, including a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and five "noncombatants."
Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting.
By Carlotta Gall | August 27, 2008
KABUL: A UN human rights team in Afghanistan has found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians - among them 60 children - were killed in airstrikes on a village in the western province of Herat on Friday, the United Nations mission in Kabul said.
If the assertion proved correct, the attack would have killed more civilians than any U.S. military operation in Afghanistan since 2001.
The UN statement added pressure on the U.S. military, which has maintained that only 25 militants and 5 civilians were killed in the airstrikes. It ordered an investigation into the strike after Afghan officials reported the higher civilian death toll.
The UN team visited the scene and interviewed survivors and local officials and elders, getting a name, age and gender of each person reported killed. The team reported that 15 people had been wounded in the airstrikes.
The numbers closely matched those given by a government commission sent from Kabul to investigate the bombing, which put the total dead at up to 95.
Mohammad Iqbal Safi, head of the parliamentary defense committee and a member of the government commission, said the 60 children were aged from 3 months to 16 years old and that they were killed as they slept. "It was a heartbreaking scene," he said.
The death toll may increase. Heavy lifting equipment has been called in to uncover all the remains, said a Western official who had seen the UN report.
"This is a matter of grave concern to the United Nations," Kai Eide, the UN special representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement. "It is vital that the international and Afghan military forces thoroughly review the conduct of this operation in order to prevent a repeat of this tragic incident."
The bombing occurred around midnight, the UN statement said.
"Foreign and Afghan military personnel entered the village of Nawabad in the Azizabad area of Shindand District," it said. "Military operations lasted several hours during which airstrikes were called in.
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident," with seven or eight houses "having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others."
Safi, the member of Parliament, said the villagers had been preparing for a ceremony the next morning in memory of a man who died some time before. Extended families from two tribes were visiting the village and there were lights of fires as the adults were cooking food for the ceremony, he said.
How the military came to call in airstrikes on a civilian gathering is unclear. Two members of Parliament, Safi and Maulavi Gul Ahmad, who is from the area, said the villagers blamed tribal enemies for giving the military false intelligence on foreign fighters gathering in the village.
Ahmad blamed the U.S. Special Forces, who are training the Afghan Army and were present in the joint operation. "I can't blame the Afghan National Army for the incident, as they had no authority for leading the operation," he said.
The government commission met with the commander of U.S. forces in Herat Province, but he declined to answer their questions, saying the U.S. military was conducting its own investigation, Afghan government officials said.
The Defense Department said it would not have a separate statement on the bombing beyond the one issued by U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan. That statement said in part that the operation killed 25 militants, including a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and five "noncombatants."
Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting.
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WaPo : U.N. Finds Airstrike Killed 90 Afghans
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
U.N. Finds Airstrike Killed 90 Afghans
Most of Fatalities In U.S.-Led Attack Said to Be Children
By Candace Rondeaux and Karen DeYoung | Washington Post Foreign Service | August 27, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 26 -- United Nations officials in Afghanistan said Tuesday that there was "convincing evidence" at least 90 civilians -- two-thirds of them children -- were killed in a U.S.-led airstrike last week that caused the Afghan government to call for a review of U.S. and NATO military operations in the country.
Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, said local officials and residents in the western province of Herat corroborated reports that 60 children and 30 adults had been killed in an Aug. 21 military operation led by U.S. Special Operations forces and the Afghan army.
In a statement, Eide called the incident a "matter of grave concern to the United Nations" and said he had "repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations."
U.S. forces in Afghanistan have increased their reliance on air power since last year, causing a corresponding increase in civilian deaths. The Herat assault appears to have caused the largest civilian loss of life attributed to U.S. forces since the war began in late 2001.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said military commanders in Afghanistan continued to believe that the attack in Herat "was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target."
Whitman promised a detailed investigation. "This has a lot of people's interest, and my sense is they want to be thorough and complete. We're doing it as expeditiously as we can."
The U.N. findings came as the government of President Hamid Karzai demanded more coordination between Afghan and international security forces and called for greater accountability on the part of U.S. and NATO troops operating in the country. Afghanistan's Council of Ministers called Monday for a halt to aerial bombings and to what it called overly aggressive house raids and illegal detentions. The council demanded an agreement with U.S. and NATO forces that would define the parameters of international military operations in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials and independent investigators say more than 165 civilians have been killed in four airstrikes in the past two months. The deaths have angered Afghans, who are pressuring Karzai to seek greater control over foreign troops even as resurgent Taliban fighters increase their attacks on the international presence in Afghanistan.
Sultan Ahmed Baheen, spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, said his office and the Afghan Defense Ministry have been working to draft a document that would require more coordination between Afghan security forces and international troops to minimize civilian deaths and damage from military operations. About 60,000 troops from 40 nations are in Afghanistan, including 32,000 from the United States.
At the United Nations on Tuesday, Russia introduced a sharply worded draft statement expressing concern about reports that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan had caused "numerous civilian casualties, including women and children."
U.N. diplomats said the Russian text stood little chance of being adopted in the Security Council, where the United States wields veto power. They interpreted the Russian action as a signal that it would pursue a more confrontational approach with the United States in response to Washington's criticism of the Russian intervention in Georgia.
U.S. officials in Washington said they have been anticipating that Karzai will demand a formal status-of-forces agreement with the United States; the Bush administration is finalizing a similar accord with Iraq after protracted negotiations. Although U.S. troops participate in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan under a U.N. mandate, the bulk of U.S. forces fall under Operation Enduring Freedom, a U.S.-only force governed by an exchange of diplomatic notes signed with the Afghan government in May 2003.
At least 90 percent of all aircraft being used in the Afghan war belong to U.S. forces operating under their own command structure. "Civilian deaths are not a NATO problem," said Marc Gerlasco, a military analyst at New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Civilian casualties are primarily being caused in airstrikes in support of the counterterrorism mission that the United States is running completely separate from the NATO-run counterinsurgency conflict," said Gerlasco, who has compiled a report on civilian deaths from airstrikes to be published next month.
Last year, as Taliban attacks increased, the number of civilian deaths caused by airstrikes spiked sharply, from 116 killed in 2006 to 321 in 2007, according to figures issued by the U.S. Air Forces Central Command. The number of sorties increased by about one-third in 2007, and the amount of munitions that were dropped more than doubled, according to the data.
Gerlasco said the amount of bombs dropped by U.S. airstrikes in June (317,000 pounds) and July (270,000 pounds) is equivalent to the total tonnage dropped in 2006. The vast majority of the strikes, Gerlasco said, are unplanned missions called in by U.S. Special Operations ground forces fighting Taliban units or because a "target of opportunity" is located through on-the-ground intelligence.
Unlike in Iraq, where U.S. forces frequently use 250-pound bombs to make attacks more precise, Gerlasco said American troops in Afghanistan "are still using a lot of" 2,000-pound bombs.
The Herat bombing occurred around midnight after U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan troops led a raid on a compound in the town of Azizabad where they said they thought a Taliban commander was holding a meeting with supporters. U.S. military officials said at least 30 insurgents were killed, including the commander, who is known as Mullah Siddiq.
Afghan officials in Herat said the bombing occurred as dozens of villagers gathered for a memorial ceremony for a villager who was killed last year. Ahmed Dehzad, one of the province's parliamentary representatives, said that local officials had received reports of Taliban activity in the vicinity several days before the ceremony but that coalition forces did not issue a warning before the attack on a compound near where the ceremony was held.
A spokesman for the Afghan army's western command said Saturday that an army investigation into the incident confirmed that about 60 children and 19 women had been killed in the airstrike. The spokesman, Raouf Ahmedi, said there was no evidence that any of those killed had ties to the Taliban.
The U.N. investigators found that at least 15 people were injured in the operation.
A little more than a day after the raid, a U.S. military spokeswoman dismissed as "outrageous" the Afghan government's assertions that scores of civilians had been killed in the attack. Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green said U.S. forces who inspected the site afterward found that five civilians had been killed.
A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Taliban has become adept at spreading false intelligence to draw U.S. strikes on civilians. "The fact is that the Taliban now has pretty good insight into where we're picking up information and how we're developing it into actionable intelligence," the official said. "They've figured out a way to misguide us."
DeYoung reported from Washington. Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.
Most of Fatalities In U.S.-Led Attack Said to Be Children
By Candace Rondeaux and Karen DeYoung | Washington Post Foreign Service | August 27, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 26 -- United Nations officials in Afghanistan said Tuesday that there was "convincing evidence" at least 90 civilians -- two-thirds of them children -- were killed in a U.S.-led airstrike last week that caused the Afghan government to call for a review of U.S. and NATO military operations in the country.
Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, said local officials and residents in the western province of Herat corroborated reports that 60 children and 30 adults had been killed in an Aug. 21 military operation led by U.S. Special Operations forces and the Afghan army.
In a statement, Eide called the incident a "matter of grave concern to the United Nations" and said he had "repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations."
U.S. forces in Afghanistan have increased their reliance on air power since last year, causing a corresponding increase in civilian deaths. The Herat assault appears to have caused the largest civilian loss of life attributed to U.S. forces since the war began in late 2001.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said military commanders in Afghanistan continued to believe that the attack in Herat "was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target."
Whitman promised a detailed investigation. "This has a lot of people's interest, and my sense is they want to be thorough and complete. We're doing it as expeditiously as we can."
The U.N. findings came as the government of President Hamid Karzai demanded more coordination between Afghan and international security forces and called for greater accountability on the part of U.S. and NATO troops operating in the country. Afghanistan's Council of Ministers called Monday for a halt to aerial bombings and to what it called overly aggressive house raids and illegal detentions. The council demanded an agreement with U.S. and NATO forces that would define the parameters of international military operations in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials and independent investigators say more than 165 civilians have been killed in four airstrikes in the past two months. The deaths have angered Afghans, who are pressuring Karzai to seek greater control over foreign troops even as resurgent Taliban fighters increase their attacks on the international presence in Afghanistan.
Sultan Ahmed Baheen, spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, said his office and the Afghan Defense Ministry have been working to draft a document that would require more coordination between Afghan security forces and international troops to minimize civilian deaths and damage from military operations. About 60,000 troops from 40 nations are in Afghanistan, including 32,000 from the United States.
At the United Nations on Tuesday, Russia introduced a sharply worded draft statement expressing concern about reports that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan had caused "numerous civilian casualties, including women and children."
U.N. diplomats said the Russian text stood little chance of being adopted in the Security Council, where the United States wields veto power. They interpreted the Russian action as a signal that it would pursue a more confrontational approach with the United States in response to Washington's criticism of the Russian intervention in Georgia.
U.S. officials in Washington said they have been anticipating that Karzai will demand a formal status-of-forces agreement with the United States; the Bush administration is finalizing a similar accord with Iraq after protracted negotiations. Although U.S. troops participate in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan under a U.N. mandate, the bulk of U.S. forces fall under Operation Enduring Freedom, a U.S.-only force governed by an exchange of diplomatic notes signed with the Afghan government in May 2003.
At least 90 percent of all aircraft being used in the Afghan war belong to U.S. forces operating under their own command structure. "Civilian deaths are not a NATO problem," said Marc Gerlasco, a military analyst at New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Civilian casualties are primarily being caused in airstrikes in support of the counterterrorism mission that the United States is running completely separate from the NATO-run counterinsurgency conflict," said Gerlasco, who has compiled a report on civilian deaths from airstrikes to be published next month.
Last year, as Taliban attacks increased, the number of civilian deaths caused by airstrikes spiked sharply, from 116 killed in 2006 to 321 in 2007, according to figures issued by the U.S. Air Forces Central Command. The number of sorties increased by about one-third in 2007, and the amount of munitions that were dropped more than doubled, according to the data.
Gerlasco said the amount of bombs dropped by U.S. airstrikes in June (317,000 pounds) and July (270,000 pounds) is equivalent to the total tonnage dropped in 2006. The vast majority of the strikes, Gerlasco said, are unplanned missions called in by U.S. Special Operations ground forces fighting Taliban units or because a "target of opportunity" is located through on-the-ground intelligence.
Unlike in Iraq, where U.S. forces frequently use 250-pound bombs to make attacks more precise, Gerlasco said American troops in Afghanistan "are still using a lot of" 2,000-pound bombs.
The Herat bombing occurred around midnight after U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan troops led a raid on a compound in the town of Azizabad where they said they thought a Taliban commander was holding a meeting with supporters. U.S. military officials said at least 30 insurgents were killed, including the commander, who is known as Mullah Siddiq.
Afghan officials in Herat said the bombing occurred as dozens of villagers gathered for a memorial ceremony for a villager who was killed last year. Ahmed Dehzad, one of the province's parliamentary representatives, said that local officials had received reports of Taliban activity in the vicinity several days before the ceremony but that coalition forces did not issue a warning before the attack on a compound near where the ceremony was held.
A spokesman for the Afghan army's western command said Saturday that an army investigation into the incident confirmed that about 60 children and 19 women had been killed in the airstrike. The spokesman, Raouf Ahmedi, said there was no evidence that any of those killed had ties to the Taliban.
The U.N. investigators found that at least 15 people were injured in the operation.
A little more than a day after the raid, a U.S. military spokeswoman dismissed as "outrageous" the Afghan government's assertions that scores of civilians had been killed in the attack. Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green said U.S. forces who inspected the site afterward found that five civilians had been killed.
A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Taliban has become adept at spreading false intelligence to draw U.S. strikes on civilians. "The fact is that the Taliban now has pretty good insight into where we're picking up information and how we're developing it into actionable intelligence," the official said. "They've figured out a way to misguide us."
DeYoung reported from Washington. Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.
Filed under
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Hamid Karzai,
Kai Eide
by Winter Patriot
on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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LAT : U.N. cites evidence that U.S. attack in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
U.N. cites evidence that U.S. attack in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians
August 27, 2008
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- The United Nations said Tuesday that "convincing evidence" exists that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians. The U.S. military stood by its account that 25 militants and five civilians were killed.
The U.N. sent a team of investigators who relied solely on villagers' statements in alleging that Friday's operation, which also included Afghan troops, in the western province of Herat killed "60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
The U.N. did not provide photos or evidence that its investigators saw any graves, but said that "residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims."
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some seven to eight houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others," the statement said.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. in Kabul, said the investigation is continuing.
The top U.S. coalition commander also has ordered an investigation.
But in Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said, "I don't have any information that would suggest that our military commanders in Afghanistan don't believe, still, that this was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target."
Afghan officials have said 76 to 90 civilians were killed, and President Hamid Karzai has sacked two of his military officers since the attack. The head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Ahmad Nader Nadery, has confirmed reports that a memorial ceremony was being held for a militia commander allied with the police at the time of the attack, and relatives and friends from outside the area were staying overnight in the village.
The U.N.'s allegation of such a large number of civilian deaths could set the U.S., U.N. and the Afghan government on a collision course over the use of military force in Afghan villages, where international troops battle Taliban and Al Qaeda militants daily.
The U.N. statement came a day after Karzai's government said it would try to exert more control over the way U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops operate.
Afghanistan's Council of Ministers ordered the ministries of defense and foreign affairs to open negotiations with the U.S. and NATO over the use of airstrikes, house searches and the detentions of Afghan civilians. It also called for a status of forces agreement to regulate the troops' presence.
August 27, 2008
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- The United Nations said Tuesday that "convincing evidence" exists that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians. The U.S. military stood by its account that 25 militants and five civilians were killed.
The U.N. sent a team of investigators who relied solely on villagers' statements in alleging that Friday's operation, which also included Afghan troops, in the western province of Herat killed "60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
The U.N. did not provide photos or evidence that its investigators saw any graves, but said that "residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims."
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some seven to eight houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others," the statement said.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. in Kabul, said the investigation is continuing.
The top U.S. coalition commander also has ordered an investigation.
But in Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said, "I don't have any information that would suggest that our military commanders in Afghanistan don't believe, still, that this was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target."
Afghan officials have said 76 to 90 civilians were killed, and President Hamid Karzai has sacked two of his military officers since the attack. The head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Ahmad Nader Nadery, has confirmed reports that a memorial ceremony was being held for a militia commander allied with the police at the time of the attack, and relatives and friends from outside the area were staying overnight in the village.
The U.N.'s allegation of such a large number of civilian deaths could set the U.S., U.N. and the Afghan government on a collision course over the use of military force in Afghan villages, where international troops battle Taliban and Al Qaeda militants daily.
The U.N. statement came a day after Karzai's government said it would try to exert more control over the way U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops operate.
Afghanistan's Council of Ministers ordered the ministries of defense and foreign affairs to open negotiations with the U.S. and NATO over the use of airstrikes, house searches and the detentions of Afghan civilians. It also called for a status of forces agreement to regulate the troops' presence.
Filed under
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Boston Globe : UN accuses US-led troops in deaths of Afghans
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
UN accuses US-led troops in deaths of Afghans
By Fisnik Abrashi | Associated Press Writer | August 26, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a stark warning to U.S. forces, the Afghan government said it will try to regulate the presence of U.S. troops and their use of airstrikes, while the U.N. on Tuesday announced that "convincing evidence" exists that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians.
The U.N. sent in a team of investigators, who relied solely on villagers' statements in alleging the American-led operation in the western province of Herat on Friday killed 60 children and 30 adults. The U.S. military stood by its account, that 25 militants and five civilians were killed in the operation.
"I don't have any information that would suggest that our military commanders in Afghanistan don't believe, still, that this was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said in Washington.
The U.N. allegation comes a day after President Hamid Karzai's government said it will try to put more controls on the way American and NATO troops operate, a response to a series of airstrikes and other operations this summer that have caused the deaths of scores of civilians.
Afghanistan's Council of Ministers ordered the ministries of defense and foreign affairs to open negotiations with the U.S. and NATO over the use of airstrikes, house searches and the detentions of Afghan civilians. It also called for a "status of force" agreement to regulate the troops' presence.
Afghanistan's effort to rein in foreign forces is similar to steps taken by the Iraqi government, which has demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and greater control of U.S. operations until their departure.
The U.N.'s allegation of such a large number of civilian deaths could set the U.S., U.N. and the Afghan government on a collision course over the use of military force in Afghan villages, where international troops battle Taliban and al-Qaida militants daily.
Russia on Tuesday circulated a draft Security Council press statement expressing serious concern about the numerous civilian casualties reportedly caused by the airstrike and saying member nations "strongly deplore the fact that this is not the first incident of this kind."
Press statements must be approved by all 15 Security Council members and Western diplomats said that there was no chance the Russian draft would be adopted.
The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, recognizes the need to combat terrorism, but notes "that killing and maiming of civilians is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law."
It calls on the U.S.-led coalition, the International Security Assistance Force and all parties in Afghanistan to take steps to ensure the protection of civilians, particularly women and children.
The Russians called for an investigation of the incident.
A recent spate of civilian deaths has added fuel to long-simmering public anger surrounding the issue. In the first week of July, 69 Afghan civilians were killed in two separate operations in eastern Afghanistan, including 47 people killed in Nangarhar province while walking to a wedding party, Afghan officials say.
Afghan officials say that scores of civilians -- between 76 and 90 -- were killed in Herat province on Friday. The head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Ahmad Nader Nadery, has confirmed reports that a memorial ceremony was being held for a militia commander allied with the Afghan police and several relatives and friends from outside the area were staying overnight in the village at the time of the attack.
Civilian casualties have long been a major source of friction between Karzai and his Western backers. Afghan officials say civilian deaths create a rift between the government and the people that Taliban and other anti-government forces use as leverage to turn villagers away from the government.
In addition, Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information provided by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with a vendetta or simply interested in generic reward money for anti-government militants.
According to an Associated Press tally, 705 civilians have been killed this year: 536 by militants, and 158 by international forces; 11 civilians have died in cross fire. The numbers do not include figures from the Herat battle and likely do not account for all civilian deaths this year.
U.S. and NATO officials say they take great care in their targeting but also accuse the militants of hiding in civilian homes and using Afghans as human shields.
Another factor, diplomats in Kabul say, is that Karzai is running for re-election next year. Blaming foreigners for the ills afflicting the country is a sure way to win popular support.
Anti-foreigner sentiment has been rising over the years here, partly because of civilian deaths but also because many Afghans do not see the benefits of billions of dollars in aid that have poured into the country since the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001.
Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said Tuesday that the ministers' decision was made after Afghan officials "lost patience" with foreign forces, and the killings and detentions of civilians during raids in remote villages.
"We do not want international forces to leave Afghanistan until the time our security institutions are able to defend Afghanistan independently," Hamidzada told reporters.
But the presence of those forces has to be based "within the framework of Afghan law with respect to international law," he said.
Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the legal framework for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan was established in a 2003 agreement between Kabul and Washington. Done via an exchange of diplomatic notes, the pact is considered a bilateral agreement and is like a status of forces agreement, Ryder said.
In a statement Tuesday, the U.N. put its weight behind the Afghan government claim of civilian deaths in Herat, saying its investigators "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
The U.N. did not provide photos or evidence that its investigators who went to the scene saw any graves or that any militants were among those killed. Instead it relied on statements of villagers, local officials and eyewitnesses.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. in Kabul, said the world body's investigation is ongoing.
The U.N. said that "residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims."
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 7-8 houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others," the statement said.
The top U.S. coalition commander has ordered an investigation.
"We welcome getting all the facts on the table," said Corina Sanders, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman. "We take civilian casualties very seriously."
Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report from Washington.
© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
By Fisnik Abrashi | Associated Press Writer | August 26, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a stark warning to U.S. forces, the Afghan government said it will try to regulate the presence of U.S. troops and their use of airstrikes, while the U.N. on Tuesday announced that "convincing evidence" exists that an American-led operation killed 90 civilians.
The U.N. sent in a team of investigators, who relied solely on villagers' statements in alleging the American-led operation in the western province of Herat on Friday killed 60 children and 30 adults. The U.S. military stood by its account, that 25 militants and five civilians were killed in the operation.
"I don't have any information that would suggest that our military commanders in Afghanistan don't believe, still, that this was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said in Washington.
The U.N. allegation comes a day after President Hamid Karzai's government said it will try to put more controls on the way American and NATO troops operate, a response to a series of airstrikes and other operations this summer that have caused the deaths of scores of civilians.
Afghanistan's Council of Ministers ordered the ministries of defense and foreign affairs to open negotiations with the U.S. and NATO over the use of airstrikes, house searches and the detentions of Afghan civilians. It also called for a "status of force" agreement to regulate the troops' presence.
Afghanistan's effort to rein in foreign forces is similar to steps taken by the Iraqi government, which has demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and greater control of U.S. operations until their departure.
The U.N.'s allegation of such a large number of civilian deaths could set the U.S., U.N. and the Afghan government on a collision course over the use of military force in Afghan villages, where international troops battle Taliban and al-Qaida militants daily.
Russia on Tuesday circulated a draft Security Council press statement expressing serious concern about the numerous civilian casualties reportedly caused by the airstrike and saying member nations "strongly deplore the fact that this is not the first incident of this kind."
Press statements must be approved by all 15 Security Council members and Western diplomats said that there was no chance the Russian draft would be adopted.
The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, recognizes the need to combat terrorism, but notes "that killing and maiming of civilians is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law."
It calls on the U.S.-led coalition, the International Security Assistance Force and all parties in Afghanistan to take steps to ensure the protection of civilians, particularly women and children.
The Russians called for an investigation of the incident.
A recent spate of civilian deaths has added fuel to long-simmering public anger surrounding the issue. In the first week of July, 69 Afghan civilians were killed in two separate operations in eastern Afghanistan, including 47 people killed in Nangarhar province while walking to a wedding party, Afghan officials say.
Afghan officials say that scores of civilians -- between 76 and 90 -- were killed in Herat province on Friday. The head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Ahmad Nader Nadery, has confirmed reports that a memorial ceremony was being held for a militia commander allied with the Afghan police and several relatives and friends from outside the area were staying overnight in the village at the time of the attack.
Civilian casualties have long been a major source of friction between Karzai and his Western backers. Afghan officials say civilian deaths create a rift between the government and the people that Taliban and other anti-government forces use as leverage to turn villagers away from the government.
In addition, Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information provided by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with a vendetta or simply interested in generic reward money for anti-government militants.
According to an Associated Press tally, 705 civilians have been killed this year: 536 by militants, and 158 by international forces; 11 civilians have died in cross fire. The numbers do not include figures from the Herat battle and likely do not account for all civilian deaths this year.
U.S. and NATO officials say they take great care in their targeting but also accuse the militants of hiding in civilian homes and using Afghans as human shields.
Another factor, diplomats in Kabul say, is that Karzai is running for re-election next year. Blaming foreigners for the ills afflicting the country is a sure way to win popular support.
Anti-foreigner sentiment has been rising over the years here, partly because of civilian deaths but also because many Afghans do not see the benefits of billions of dollars in aid that have poured into the country since the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001.
Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said Tuesday that the ministers' decision was made after Afghan officials "lost patience" with foreign forces, and the killings and detentions of civilians during raids in remote villages.
"We do not want international forces to leave Afghanistan until the time our security institutions are able to defend Afghanistan independently," Hamidzada told reporters.
But the presence of those forces has to be based "within the framework of Afghan law with respect to international law," he said.
Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the legal framework for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan was established in a 2003 agreement between Kabul and Washington. Done via an exchange of diplomatic notes, the pact is considered a bilateral agreement and is like a status of forces agreement, Ryder said.
In a statement Tuesday, the U.N. put its weight behind the Afghan government claim of civilian deaths in Herat, saying its investigators "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
The U.N. did not provide photos or evidence that its investigators who went to the scene saw any graves or that any militants were among those killed. Instead it relied on statements of villagers, local officials and eyewitnesses.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. in Kabul, said the world body's investigation is ongoing.
The U.N. said that "residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims."
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 7-8 houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others," the statement said.
The top U.S. coalition commander has ordered an investigation.
"We welcome getting all the facts on the table," said Corina Sanders, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman. "We take civilian casualties very seriously."
Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report from Washington.
© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Boston Globe : Karzai denounces US-led air strike that killed civilians
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Karzai denounces US-led air strike that killed civilians
About 70 die in Afghanistan
By M. Karim Faiez | Los Angeles Times | August 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai yesterday denounced an air strike by US-led forces that his government said killed more than 70 Afghan civilians.
Karzai said his government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent more civilian casualties but provided no details.
Civilian deaths are an extremely sensitive subject in Afghanistan, where the government repeatedly has pleaded with Western troops to exercise greater care to avoid hurting and killing noncombatants. Karzai broke down in tears during one such appeal.
The US military initially put the number of dead in Friday's air strike at 30, describing all those killed in a remote part of Herat Province as Taliban militants. Yesterday, US spokesmen said allegations of a much higher and predominantly civilian death toll would be investigated.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Friday the aerial bombardment killed 76 civilians, including scores of women and children.
Government officials who traveled yesterday to Azizabad in Herat Province, where the operation took place, said the death toll had risen to 95, including civilians. That makes it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.
Accounts of the fighting provided by Afghan authorities, human rights groups, and the US military have varied widely, and the remoteness of the area made it difficult to determine exactly what happened.
The United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, called for the operation to be investigated "thoroughly and quickly."
The US military said it staged the air strike near Afghanistan's western border to target a senior Taliban commander. Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said the commander targeted in the raid, Mullah Siddiq, was among those killed in the air strike.
Local authorities reported villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers who arrived in Azizabad yesterday to distribute aid, and that soldiers eventually fired into the air to disperse the protesters.
Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.
"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told the Associated Press by phone. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."
Azrat said villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers when the troops tried to give food and clothes to them. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically injured.
"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food; we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.' "
An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad and found that 15 houses had been destroyed and others were damaged, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner.
Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.
Nadery confirmed reports from villagers that a memorial ceremony was being held for a deputy militia commander allied with the Afghan police named Timor Shah, who had died in a personal dispute several months ago. Because of the memorial, relatives and friends from outside Azizabad were staying overnight in village homes, he said.
An AP photographer who visited Azizabad yesterday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw about 20 houses that had been destroyed.
The US said it would investigate the conflicting reports.
"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said US coalition spokesman First Lieutenant Nathan Perry.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
About 70 die in Afghanistan
By M. Karim Faiez | Los Angeles Times | August 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai yesterday denounced an air strike by US-led forces that his government said killed more than 70 Afghan civilians.
Karzai said his government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent more civilian casualties but provided no details.
Civilian deaths are an extremely sensitive subject in Afghanistan, where the government repeatedly has pleaded with Western troops to exercise greater care to avoid hurting and killing noncombatants. Karzai broke down in tears during one such appeal.
The US military initially put the number of dead in Friday's air strike at 30, describing all those killed in a remote part of Herat Province as Taliban militants. Yesterday, US spokesmen said allegations of a much higher and predominantly civilian death toll would be investigated.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Friday the aerial bombardment killed 76 civilians, including scores of women and children.
Government officials who traveled yesterday to Azizabad in Herat Province, where the operation took place, said the death toll had risen to 95, including civilians. That makes it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.
Accounts of the fighting provided by Afghan authorities, human rights groups, and the US military have varied widely, and the remoteness of the area made it difficult to determine exactly what happened.
The United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, called for the operation to be investigated "thoroughly and quickly."
The US military said it staged the air strike near Afghanistan's western border to target a senior Taliban commander. Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said the commander targeted in the raid, Mullah Siddiq, was among those killed in the air strike.
Local authorities reported villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers who arrived in Azizabad yesterday to distribute aid, and that soldiers eventually fired into the air to disperse the protesters.
Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.
"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told the Associated Press by phone. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."
Azrat said villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers when the troops tried to give food and clothes to them. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically injured.
"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food; we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.' "
An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad and found that 15 houses had been destroyed and others were damaged, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner.
Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.
Nadery confirmed reports from villagers that a memorial ceremony was being held for a deputy militia commander allied with the Afghan police named Timor Shah, who had died in a personal dispute several months ago. Because of the memorial, relatives and friends from outside Azizabad were staying overnight in village homes, he said.
An AP photographer who visited Azizabad yesterday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw about 20 houses that had been destroyed.
The US said it would investigate the conflicting reports.
"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said US coalition spokesman First Lieutenant Nathan Perry.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
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ABC : Rights Group: 78 Afghans Killed; US to Investigate
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Rights Group: 78 Afghans Killed; US to Investigate
Human rights group says 78 Afghans killed; US to investigate civilian death claims
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press Writers | August 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Scores of Afghan civilians who had gathered in a small village for the memorial ceremony of a militia commander were killed when U.S. and Afghan soldiers launched an attack in the middle of the night, officials and villagers said Saturday.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the early Friday operation in western Afghanistan and said most of the dead were civilians. The U.S. coalition, however, said it believed only five civilians were among those killed and said that it would investigate the Afghan claims.
An Afghan human rights group that visited the site of the operation said Saturday that at least 78 people were killed. The Ministry of Interior has said 76 civilians died, including 50 children under the age of 15, though the Ministry of Defense said 25 militants and five civilians were killed.
Meanwhile, a school principal and police official said Afghan soldiers tried to hand out food and clothes Saturday in Azizabad — the village in Herat province where the operation took place. But villagers started throwing stones at the soldiers, who then fired on the villagers and wounded up to eight people.
An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad in Herat province and found that 15 houses had been destroyed and others were damaged, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner.
Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.
Nadery confirmed reports from villagers that a memorial ceremony was being held for a deputy militia commander allied with the Afghan police named Timor Shah, who had died in a personal dispute several months ago. Because of the memorial, relatives and friends from outside Azizabad were staying overnight in village homes, he said.
An AP photographer who visited Azizabad on Saturday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw around 20 houses that had been destroyed.
The U.S. said it would investigate.
"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "We had people on the ground."
The competing claims by the U.S. coalition and the two Afghan ministries were impossible to verify because of the remote and dangerous location of the battle site.
Complicating the matter, Afghan officials are known to exaggerate civilian death claims for political payback, to qualify for more compensation money from the U.S. or because of pressure from the Taliban.
Still, the U.S. has killed dozens of civilians in past strikes even though it first denied any civilians had been hit.
In early July, U.S. bombs killed 47 civilians walking to a wedding party in Nuristan province, according to the findings of a government commission.
The U.S. military originally said it believed only combatants had been killed, and suggested that reports of civilians deaths were based on propaganda from militants. The U.S. later acknowledged that there may have been civilian casualties but never gave a specific number.
Civilian deaths creates massive amounts of pressure on Karzai, and on Saturday the president said his government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent civilian casualties, but provided no details.
Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.
"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told The Associated Press by phone, sometimes pausing to collect himself in between tears. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."
"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food, we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.'"
A spokesman for Afghan police in western Afghanistan, Rauf Ahmadi, confirmed that the demonstration took place against the soldiers, who he said fired into the air. Ahmadi said two Afghans were wounded by the gunfire.
The early Friday operation was led by Afghan National Army commandos, with support from the coalition, Nielson-Green said.
It was launched after an intelligence report that a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was inside the compound presiding over a meeting of militants, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. Siddiq was one of those killed during the raid, Azimi said.
More than 3,500 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed 10 civilians as they rode in a small bus in southern Kandahar province, according to an Afghan police chief, Matiullah Khan. Roadside bombs are typically aimed at Afghan and NATO troops but often are triggered early and kill civilians.
On Sunday, U.S.-led coalition troops clashed with a group of Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan, killing six militants, said Rahimullah safi, an Afghan provincial official.
The troops were attacked by militants while on patrol in the volatile Tagab valley of the northern Kapisa province before returning fire, said 1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a coalition spokesman. Perry said "multiple militants" were killed.
Tagab is close to where militants killed 10 French troops on Tuesday in the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Human rights group says 78 Afghans killed; US to investigate civilian death claims
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press Writers | August 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Scores of Afghan civilians who had gathered in a small village for the memorial ceremony of a militia commander were killed when U.S. and Afghan soldiers launched an attack in the middle of the night, officials and villagers said Saturday.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the early Friday operation in western Afghanistan and said most of the dead were civilians. The U.S. coalition, however, said it believed only five civilians were among those killed and said that it would investigate the Afghan claims.
An Afghan human rights group that visited the site of the operation said Saturday that at least 78 people were killed. The Ministry of Interior has said 76 civilians died, including 50 children under the age of 15, though the Ministry of Defense said 25 militants and five civilians were killed.
Meanwhile, a school principal and police official said Afghan soldiers tried to hand out food and clothes Saturday in Azizabad — the village in Herat province where the operation took place. But villagers started throwing stones at the soldiers, who then fired on the villagers and wounded up to eight people.
An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad in Herat province and found that 15 houses had been destroyed and others were damaged, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner.
Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.
Nadery confirmed reports from villagers that a memorial ceremony was being held for a deputy militia commander allied with the Afghan police named Timor Shah, who had died in a personal dispute several months ago. Because of the memorial, relatives and friends from outside Azizabad were staying overnight in village homes, he said.
An AP photographer who visited Azizabad on Saturday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw around 20 houses that had been destroyed.
The U.S. said it would investigate.
"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "We had people on the ground."
The competing claims by the U.S. coalition and the two Afghan ministries were impossible to verify because of the remote and dangerous location of the battle site.
Complicating the matter, Afghan officials are known to exaggerate civilian death claims for political payback, to qualify for more compensation money from the U.S. or because of pressure from the Taliban.
Still, the U.S. has killed dozens of civilians in past strikes even though it first denied any civilians had been hit.
In early July, U.S. bombs killed 47 civilians walking to a wedding party in Nuristan province, according to the findings of a government commission.
The U.S. military originally said it believed only combatants had been killed, and suggested that reports of civilians deaths were based on propaganda from militants. The U.S. later acknowledged that there may have been civilian casualties but never gave a specific number.
Civilian deaths creates massive amounts of pressure on Karzai, and on Saturday the president said his government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent civilian casualties, but provided no details.
Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.
"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told The Associated Press by phone, sometimes pausing to collect himself in between tears. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."
"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food, we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.'"
A spokesman for Afghan police in western Afghanistan, Rauf Ahmadi, confirmed that the demonstration took place against the soldiers, who he said fired into the air. Ahmadi said two Afghans were wounded by the gunfire.
The early Friday operation was led by Afghan National Army commandos, with support from the coalition, Nielson-Green said.
It was launched after an intelligence report that a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was inside the compound presiding over a meeting of militants, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. Siddiq was one of those killed during the raid, Azimi said.
More than 3,500 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed 10 civilians as they rode in a small bus in southern Kandahar province, according to an Afghan police chief, Matiullah Khan. Roadside bombs are typically aimed at Afghan and NATO troops but often are triggered early and kill civilians.
On Sunday, U.S.-led coalition troops clashed with a group of Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan, killing six militants, said Rahimullah safi, an Afghan provincial official.
The troops were attacked by militants while on patrol in the volatile Tagab valley of the northern Kapisa province before returning fire, said 1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a coalition spokesman. Perry said "multiple militants" were killed.
Tagab is close to where militants killed 10 French troops on Tuesday in the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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AP : Uprooted civilians beg Pakistan, militants to talk
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Uprooted civilians beg Pakistan, militants to talk
By NAHAL TOOSI | August 23, 2008
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Some of the women were eating lunch, while others were busy making bread.
Then, the bombs fell like rain.
Pakistan's latest military offensive against Taliban-led insurgents in its northwest had reached 60-year-old Haya Bibi and her extended family. They soon abandoned their mud homes in the Bajur tribal region and joined an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians walking and driving across rugged terrain to escape a 17-day operation some now call a war.
Bibi and some 45 relatives have spent the past week in sweltering, mosquito-infested tents in Pir Piai village near Peshawar city in one of more than 20 relief camps the government says are for the displaced.
Like others among the nearly 1,000 people at this camp, Bibi won't utter a critical word about the masked militants in her area. Pressed on whether she blames the government or the Taliban for her current state, she diplomatically says both, and requests the two sides try to work things out peacefully.
"We are the sufferers," a tearful Bibi says, fingering prayer beads while surrounded by a crowd of nodding relatives. "We don't want the fighting."
Aiding — and not disillusioning — those displaced by the war on terror is a huge challenge facing Pakistan as it tries to wipe out the insurgent presence in Bajur, a rumored hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
U.S. officials say tribal regions such as Bajur are turning into safe havens for militants involved in attacks on American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have been reluctant to divulge details of the operation in Bajur. Death tolls given more than a week ago put the number of suspected insurgents dead at more than 460 along with 22 paramilitary troops killed. No civilian death toll was given, though witnesses have reported dozens.
The information has been difficult to confirm because of the remote, dangerous nature of the fiercely independent and deeply conservative tribal areas, where the federal government has long had limited authority.
But if the numbers given so far are accurate, it is one of the bloodiest episodes since Pakistan first deployed its troops along its volatile border with Afghanistan in support of the U.S.-led war on terror nearly seven years ago.
Attempts to reach the army spokesman Saturday were not immediately successful. But previously officials have said army helicopter gunships and jets have been pounding militant positions since Aug. 6, when scores of insurgents attacked a military outpost.
The offensive comes amid exceptional political turbulence. Pervez Musharraf, a stalwart supporter of the U.S. in the war on terror, recently was forced to resign as president, and the young ruling coalition is on the brink of collapse.
And in Washington, American officials are worried about the new civilian government's resolve to fight militants.
Estimates vary, but at least 50,000 to possibly more than 200,000 people have fled Bajur and nearby Mohmand tribal region, officials say. Many are staying with relatives, while others are at camps facing difficult conditions and the prospect of disease.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said thousands of people had also shifted across the border into Afghanistan.
The U.S., which has pressed Pakistan to forcefully crack down on insurgents in its tribal belt, has declared the resulting civilian uprooting a "disaster" situation, and given $50,000 for aid such as gas stoves and utensils.
The conditions in the two camps visited by The Associated Press were dismal.
In Bibi's camp, for instance, the nearly 1,000 people, more than half of them children, are crowded into classrooms and tents in a school compound. Babies' skins were red raw with mosquito bites. In the sweltering heat, one woman lay shivering under a blanket — a sign of the malaria medical officials say has sprung up.
Diarrhea is ravaging the population, camp officials said, and the smell of fecal matters hangs in the air. There's no air conditioning, which is especially tough on women, who are trying to observe their cultural and religious traditions of staying indoors and out of the sight of unrelated men.
Every day, more families are arriving. On Friday, children helped clear grass to allow space to set up more tents.
"It is so hard here," said Jamshid Khan, a 20-something with a bum leg who reached the camp five days ago. "We want to go back as soon as possible."
Pakistan's Taliban movement, meanwhile, has claimed responsibility for at least three major attacks in recent days, calling them revenge for the Bajur operation and a military offensive in Swat. One attack, a twin suicide bombing at a weapons manufacturing complex near the capital, Islamabad, killed 67 people.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, which lies next to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and is absorbing many of the displaced, called the civilian exodus a "gesture of cooperation from the local people," to allow the operation against the insurgents to avoid "collateral damage."
"To us, the main objective is to bring peace and stability in this area," he said. "We will fight until the last victory."
In interviews at two camps visited by the AP, virtually no one would criticize the Taliban or openly support the military action.
It was difficult to say why — whether they were scared, sympathetic, or genuinely not bothered by the insurgents, or whether tribal loyalties wouldn't allow them to speak ill of the militants to a foreigner.
Did the Taliban force them to give up male members to fight the jihad? "No."
Did the Taliban threaten the people? "No — they leave us alone, and we leave them alone."
Did the Taliban punish men without beards or women who wandered out alone? "No ... they might encourage people to observe Islamic law, but most of us do so anyway."
Is the Interior Ministry chief correct when he says more than 3,000 armed militants — many of them from other countries — are in Bajur? "We don't want to take sides."
Three women, including Bibi, said they saw militants offer to pay drivers to give lifts to civilians trying to escape.
Sartaj Khan, a slender 21-year-old with a sad face in the Pir Piai camp, said, "If anybody says anything bad about the Taliban, they'll go after them."
Not far away, in a separate camp on the outskirts of Charsadda town, more than 150 people are staying in classrooms in a vocational school building.
Khan Wali, a 29-year-old with one wife and four children, said the military operation could lead to more sympathy for the Taliban.
"Why is the government bombing our homes? The Taliban want to bring peace to the area," he said.
He and others also decried suspected U.S. missile strikes that they said have killed innocent people in compounds allegedly inhabited by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
"It is because of these atrocities that people are giving the militants more and more sympathy," said Mohammad Shoaib, a 23-year-old manual laborer.
Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan contributed to this report.
By NAHAL TOOSI | August 23, 2008
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Some of the women were eating lunch, while others were busy making bread.
Then, the bombs fell like rain.
Pakistan's latest military offensive against Taliban-led insurgents in its northwest had reached 60-year-old Haya Bibi and her extended family. They soon abandoned their mud homes in the Bajur tribal region and joined an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians walking and driving across rugged terrain to escape a 17-day operation some now call a war.
Bibi and some 45 relatives have spent the past week in sweltering, mosquito-infested tents in Pir Piai village near Peshawar city in one of more than 20 relief camps the government says are for the displaced.
Like others among the nearly 1,000 people at this camp, Bibi won't utter a critical word about the masked militants in her area. Pressed on whether she blames the government or the Taliban for her current state, she diplomatically says both, and requests the two sides try to work things out peacefully.
"We are the sufferers," a tearful Bibi says, fingering prayer beads while surrounded by a crowd of nodding relatives. "We don't want the fighting."
Aiding — and not disillusioning — those displaced by the war on terror is a huge challenge facing Pakistan as it tries to wipe out the insurgent presence in Bajur, a rumored hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
U.S. officials say tribal regions such as Bajur are turning into safe havens for militants involved in attacks on American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have been reluctant to divulge details of the operation in Bajur. Death tolls given more than a week ago put the number of suspected insurgents dead at more than 460 along with 22 paramilitary troops killed. No civilian death toll was given, though witnesses have reported dozens.
The information has been difficult to confirm because of the remote, dangerous nature of the fiercely independent and deeply conservative tribal areas, where the federal government has long had limited authority.
But if the numbers given so far are accurate, it is one of the bloodiest episodes since Pakistan first deployed its troops along its volatile border with Afghanistan in support of the U.S.-led war on terror nearly seven years ago.
Attempts to reach the army spokesman Saturday were not immediately successful. But previously officials have said army helicopter gunships and jets have been pounding militant positions since Aug. 6, when scores of insurgents attacked a military outpost.
The offensive comes amid exceptional political turbulence. Pervez Musharraf, a stalwart supporter of the U.S. in the war on terror, recently was forced to resign as president, and the young ruling coalition is on the brink of collapse.
And in Washington, American officials are worried about the new civilian government's resolve to fight militants.
Estimates vary, but at least 50,000 to possibly more than 200,000 people have fled Bajur and nearby Mohmand tribal region, officials say. Many are staying with relatives, while others are at camps facing difficult conditions and the prospect of disease.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said thousands of people had also shifted across the border into Afghanistan.
The U.S., which has pressed Pakistan to forcefully crack down on insurgents in its tribal belt, has declared the resulting civilian uprooting a "disaster" situation, and given $50,000 for aid such as gas stoves and utensils.
The conditions in the two camps visited by The Associated Press were dismal.
In Bibi's camp, for instance, the nearly 1,000 people, more than half of them children, are crowded into classrooms and tents in a school compound. Babies' skins were red raw with mosquito bites. In the sweltering heat, one woman lay shivering under a blanket — a sign of the malaria medical officials say has sprung up.
Diarrhea is ravaging the population, camp officials said, and the smell of fecal matters hangs in the air. There's no air conditioning, which is especially tough on women, who are trying to observe their cultural and religious traditions of staying indoors and out of the sight of unrelated men.
Every day, more families are arriving. On Friday, children helped clear grass to allow space to set up more tents.
"It is so hard here," said Jamshid Khan, a 20-something with a bum leg who reached the camp five days ago. "We want to go back as soon as possible."
Pakistan's Taliban movement, meanwhile, has claimed responsibility for at least three major attacks in recent days, calling them revenge for the Bajur operation and a military offensive in Swat. One attack, a twin suicide bombing at a weapons manufacturing complex near the capital, Islamabad, killed 67 people.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, which lies next to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and is absorbing many of the displaced, called the civilian exodus a "gesture of cooperation from the local people," to allow the operation against the insurgents to avoid "collateral damage."
"To us, the main objective is to bring peace and stability in this area," he said. "We will fight until the last victory."
In interviews at two camps visited by the AP, virtually no one would criticize the Taliban or openly support the military action.
It was difficult to say why — whether they were scared, sympathetic, or genuinely not bothered by the insurgents, or whether tribal loyalties wouldn't allow them to speak ill of the militants to a foreigner.
Did the Taliban force them to give up male members to fight the jihad? "No."
Did the Taliban threaten the people? "No — they leave us alone, and we leave them alone."
Did the Taliban punish men without beards or women who wandered out alone? "No ... they might encourage people to observe Islamic law, but most of us do so anyway."
Is the Interior Ministry chief correct when he says more than 3,000 armed militants — many of them from other countries — are in Bajur? "We don't want to take sides."
Three women, including Bibi, said they saw militants offer to pay drivers to give lifts to civilians trying to escape.
Sartaj Khan, a slender 21-year-old with a sad face in the Pir Piai camp, said, "If anybody says anything bad about the Taliban, they'll go after them."
Not far away, in a separate camp on the outskirts of Charsadda town, more than 150 people are staying in classrooms in a vocational school building.
Khan Wali, a 29-year-old with one wife and four children, said the military operation could lead to more sympathy for the Taliban.
"Why is the government bombing our homes? The Taliban want to bring peace to the area," he said.
He and others also decried suspected U.S. missile strikes that they said have killed innocent people in compounds allegedly inhabited by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
"It is because of these atrocities that people are giving the militants more and more sympathy," said Mohammad Shoaib, a 23-year-old manual laborer.
Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan contributed to this report.
Filed under
Ayman al Zawahri,
civilian casualties,
Osama bin Laden,
Pakistan,
Pervez Musharraf,
Taliban
by Winter Patriot
on Sunday, August 24, 2008
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NYT : Afghan President Assails U.S.-Led Airstrike
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Afghan President Assails U.S.-Led Airstrike
By CARLOTTA GALL | August 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned on Saturday a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghan civilians — including 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing initiatives to prevent such heavy loss of civilian life in the future.
“Afghanistan takes every necessary measure to avoid and stop such tragic accidents happening in the future and Afghan initiatives for avoiding loss of civilian lives will soon be announced,” he said.
Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat Province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.
The account by Afghan officials conflicted with that of the United States military, which said Friday that coalition forces had come under attack and had called in airstrikes that killed 25 militants, including a Taliban leader, and five civilians. On Saturday, the military said it was investigating the episode.
“Coalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand District of Herat Province Friday may have resulted in civilian casualties,” a statement issued from Bagram air base said. “All allegations of civilian casualties are taken very seriously. Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed.”
The tensions between Afghan officials and the coalition are rising amid an increase in Taliban attacks recently.
The airstrike in Herat was the second time in six weeks that Mr. Karzai had condemned the coalition for strikes that he said had caused civilian casualties, and represented a growing frustration among Afghan officials at the high civilian toll from American-led operations and the failure of American commanders to address Afghan concerns.
He criticized an airstrike on July 6 that killed 27 people of a wedding party, most of them women and children, including the bride, in eastern Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said civilians, including children, were brought to a provincial hospital in the town of Jalalabad. The American military is still investigating that episode, and has not acknowledged that civilians had been killed.
Mr. Karzai’s announcement of new initiatives to put an end to the high casualties from military operation was a sign of growing frustration, the presidential spokesman, Mr. Hamidzada, said. He said previous requests to American forces for greater care concerning civilian casualties had had little effect. He said civilian casualties had been declining over the past several months but that the recent airstrikes had reversed that trend.
“This puts us in a very difficult position,” said one government official, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It provides propaganda to the Taliban and if they don’t take responsibility, it actually helps the Taliban.”
Another Afghan official said the government would demand broader, strategic-level cooperation on military operations. There have also been calls among members of the Afghan Parliament and Western analysts to bring Special Forces, who have often been involved in calling in airstrikes on civilians, under stricter constraints.
After the Afghan government said Friday that more than 70 civilians had been killed, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of coalition forces, ordered an investigation into the episode, the public affairs officer, First Lt. Richard K. Ulsh, said.
Mr. Karzai has also sent a delegation comprising the minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs, Nematullah Shahrani, and a number of parliamentarians to the region. The governor and police chief of Herat Province were already visiting the village on Saturday.
Colonel Rauf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the police chief of the western region, emphatically denied that there were any Taliban in the village at the time of the strikes. “There were no Taliban,” he said by telephone. “There is no evidence to show there were Taliban there that night,” he said.
A presidential aide said that both the Ministry of Interior and the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, had also reported from the region that there were no Taliban present in the village that night. The Afghan National Army, whose commandos along with American Special Forces trainers called in the strikes, were unable to clarify their original claim, he said. A spokesman for the Afghan Army refused to comment on Saturday.
“Shindand is a difficult area,” the aide said. “You cannot say there are no Taliban at all, but were they in that village at that time?” he asked.
By CARLOTTA GALL | August 24, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned on Saturday a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghan civilians — including 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing initiatives to prevent such heavy loss of civilian life in the future.
“Afghanistan takes every necessary measure to avoid and stop such tragic accidents happening in the future and Afghan initiatives for avoiding loss of civilian lives will soon be announced,” he said.
Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat Province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.
The account by Afghan officials conflicted with that of the United States military, which said Friday that coalition forces had come under attack and had called in airstrikes that killed 25 militants, including a Taliban leader, and five civilians. On Saturday, the military said it was investigating the episode.
“Coalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand District of Herat Province Friday may have resulted in civilian casualties,” a statement issued from Bagram air base said. “All allegations of civilian casualties are taken very seriously. Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed.”
The tensions between Afghan officials and the coalition are rising amid an increase in Taliban attacks recently.
The airstrike in Herat was the second time in six weeks that Mr. Karzai had condemned the coalition for strikes that he said had caused civilian casualties, and represented a growing frustration among Afghan officials at the high civilian toll from American-led operations and the failure of American commanders to address Afghan concerns.
He criticized an airstrike on July 6 that killed 27 people of a wedding party, most of them women and children, including the bride, in eastern Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said civilians, including children, were brought to a provincial hospital in the town of Jalalabad. The American military is still investigating that episode, and has not acknowledged that civilians had been killed.
Mr. Karzai’s announcement of new initiatives to put an end to the high casualties from military operation was a sign of growing frustration, the presidential spokesman, Mr. Hamidzada, said. He said previous requests to American forces for greater care concerning civilian casualties had had little effect. He said civilian casualties had been declining over the past several months but that the recent airstrikes had reversed that trend.
“This puts us in a very difficult position,” said one government official, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It provides propaganda to the Taliban and if they don’t take responsibility, it actually helps the Taliban.”
Another Afghan official said the government would demand broader, strategic-level cooperation on military operations. There have also been calls among members of the Afghan Parliament and Western analysts to bring Special Forces, who have often been involved in calling in airstrikes on civilians, under stricter constraints.
After the Afghan government said Friday that more than 70 civilians had been killed, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of coalition forces, ordered an investigation into the episode, the public affairs officer, First Lt. Richard K. Ulsh, said.
Mr. Karzai has also sent a delegation comprising the minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs, Nematullah Shahrani, and a number of parliamentarians to the region. The governor and police chief of Herat Province were already visiting the village on Saturday.
Colonel Rauf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the police chief of the western region, emphatically denied that there were any Taliban in the village at the time of the strikes. “There were no Taliban,” he said by telephone. “There is no evidence to show there were Taliban there that night,” he said.
A presidential aide said that both the Ministry of Interior and the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, had also reported from the region that there were no Taliban present in the village that night. The Afghan National Army, whose commandos along with American Special Forces trainers called in the strikes, were unable to clarify their original claim, he said. A spokesman for the Afghan Army refused to comment on Saturday.
“Shindand is a difficult area,” the aide said. “You cannot say there are no Taliban at all, but were they in that village at that time?” he asked.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
airstrike,
Azizabad,
Carlotta Gall,
civilian casualties,
Hamid Karzai
by Winter Patriot
on Saturday, August 23, 2008
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BBC : Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing
July 13, 2008
The BBC's Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found:
On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.
Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequinned and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.
After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.
What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.
The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead.
Bombing children
A big double wedding was taking place between two families, with each exchanging a bride and a groom.
So Lal Zareen's son and daughter were both getting married on the same day.
He gave the account with his son, a 13-year-old groom, sitting at his feet.
"This is all the family I now have left," he said in a disturbingly matter of fact sort of way.
From his story and from those of other survivors, it appears the wedding group was crossing a narrow pass in the mountains which divides the valleys where the two families live.
From nowhere a fast jet flew low and dropped a bomb right on top of the pass near a group of children who had impatiently rushed ahead and were resting, waiting for the women to catch up.
Lal Zareen was waiting expectantly for the guests to arrive when he heard the explosion and began to climb up the steep mountain track to the pass.
Shah Zareen was part of the group up on the path - he had narrowly escaped being caught in the first bomb and told the women to stay where they were as he rushed to help the children.
Second blast
Shah Zareen picked up one of the injured, ran down to the village and on his way was calling his local member of parliament on a mobile phone to say they had been attacked.
But then he heard the second blast - the bomb had been dropped on top of the women and almost all of them had been killed.
Three girls escaped, among them the bride, but as they ran down the hillside a third bomb landed on top of them.
Shah Zareen explained to me how one of the many new graves contained just body parts of two or three people and the graves that had been dug and not filled were for those still missing - once their remains had been found.
The BBC team I was with were the first outsiders to see where the bombs hit - even the Afghan investigators did not climb up the steep mountainside - and there was much evidence to support the story.
The fact we could travel to the area in local cars was proof that Taleban insurgents, al-Qaeda operatives or foreign fighters were not present in the valley.
The local people said they had not seen militants, but admitted there could have been people crossing the high pass as the next ridge along leads to Tora Bora, the notorious insurgent area.
Costly mistakes
The US military says it is investigating the incident and it is understood they may have some aerial footage from hours earlier showing insurgents moving nearby.
But it is obvious a huge mistake was made on 6 July. A US statement about the bombing said "any loss of innocent life is tragic".
"I assure you we do not target civilians and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," said Lt Nathan Perry.
The US no longer insists the dead were insurgents, as it did for two days after the bombing, but it could be some time before the investigation is complete.
Civilian casualties are not new to Nangarhar province - last year a convoy of US Marines was hit by a bomb attack and in the chaos they opened fire in a bazaar killing 19 people.
They were sent home and their officers charged, but a subsequent ruling cleared them of any responsibility for the deaths.
Mirwais Yasini, a local MP and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house, made the point that civilian casualties widen the gap between the people and the government, and the international forces.
As another memorial service took place in the mountains, Lal Zareen told me: "I want President Karzai to make sure the people responsible for this face justice."
That will depend on the US findings and how the Afghan government acts.
These mistakes are incredibly costly in a counter-insurgency campaign which relies on winning people over, not forcing them against the authorities.
I wonder how many enemies have been created in Nangarhar as a result of the latest bloodshed?
July 13, 2008
The BBC's Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found:
On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.
Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequinned and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.
After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.
What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.
The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead.
Bombing children
A big double wedding was taking place between two families, with each exchanging a bride and a groom.
So Lal Zareen's son and daughter were both getting married on the same day.
He gave the account with his son, a 13-year-old groom, sitting at his feet.
"This is all the family I now have left," he said in a disturbingly matter of fact sort of way.
From his story and from those of other survivors, it appears the wedding group was crossing a narrow pass in the mountains which divides the valleys where the two families live.
From nowhere a fast jet flew low and dropped a bomb right on top of the pass near a group of children who had impatiently rushed ahead and were resting, waiting for the women to catch up.
Lal Zareen was waiting expectantly for the guests to arrive when he heard the explosion and began to climb up the steep mountain track to the pass.
Shah Zareen was part of the group up on the path - he had narrowly escaped being caught in the first bomb and told the women to stay where they were as he rushed to help the children.
Second blast
Shah Zareen picked up one of the injured, ran down to the village and on his way was calling his local member of parliament on a mobile phone to say they had been attacked.
But then he heard the second blast - the bomb had been dropped on top of the women and almost all of them had been killed.
Three girls escaped, among them the bride, but as they ran down the hillside a third bomb landed on top of them.
Shah Zareen explained to me how one of the many new graves contained just body parts of two or three people and the graves that had been dug and not filled were for those still missing - once their remains had been found.
The BBC team I was with were the first outsiders to see where the bombs hit - even the Afghan investigators did not climb up the steep mountainside - and there was much evidence to support the story.
The fact we could travel to the area in local cars was proof that Taleban insurgents, al-Qaeda operatives or foreign fighters were not present in the valley.
The local people said they had not seen militants, but admitted there could have been people crossing the high pass as the next ridge along leads to Tora Bora, the notorious insurgent area.
Costly mistakes
The US military says it is investigating the incident and it is understood they may have some aerial footage from hours earlier showing insurgents moving nearby.
But it is obvious a huge mistake was made on 6 July. A US statement about the bombing said "any loss of innocent life is tragic".
"I assure you we do not target civilians and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," said Lt Nathan Perry.
The US no longer insists the dead were insurgents, as it did for two days after the bombing, but it could be some time before the investigation is complete.
Civilian casualties are not new to Nangarhar province - last year a convoy of US Marines was hit by a bomb attack and in the chaos they opened fire in a bazaar killing 19 people.
They were sent home and their officers charged, but a subsequent ruling cleared them of any responsibility for the deaths.
Mirwais Yasini, a local MP and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house, made the point that civilian casualties widen the gap between the people and the government, and the international forces.
As another memorial service took place in the mountains, Lal Zareen told me: "I want President Karzai to make sure the people responsible for this face justice."
That will depend on the US findings and how the Afghan government acts.
These mistakes are incredibly costly in a counter-insurgency campaign which relies on winning people over, not forcing them against the authorities.
I wonder how many enemies have been created in Nangarhar as a result of the latest bloodshed?
Filed under
Afghanistan,
civilian casualties,
Hamid Karzai,
Nangarhar
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
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