- Aug 23, 2003
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UPDATE
U.S. Killed 90, Including 60 Children, in Afghan Village, U.N. Finds
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The US military is already in full denial mode, giving their textbook "we only killed militants" response, pending a full investigation. Karzai, the Afghan Ministry Of Interior, an independent Afghan human rights group, and independent press have all stated 76 civilians were killed. The most damning figure is 50 children killed. I'd like to see the US explain away 50 dead children as "militants", even mistakenly. This is NOT the first time the US has bombed scores of civilians and denied it.
Winning hearts and minds.
U.S. Killed 90, Including 60 Children, in Afghan Village, U.N. Finds
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan ? A United Nations human rights team has found ?convincing evidence? that 90 civilians ? among them 60 children ? were killed in airstrikes on a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, according to the United Nations mission in Kabul.
If the assertion proves to be correct, this would almost certainly be the deadliest case of civilian casualties caused by any United States military operation in Afghanistan since 2001.
The United Nations statement adds pressure to the United States military, which maintains that 25 militants and 5 civilians were killed in the airstrikes, but has ordered an investigation after Afghan officials reported the higher civilian death toll.
The United Nations 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 match 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, the head of the parliamentary defense committee and a member of the government commission, said the 60 children were 3 months old to 16 years old, all killed as they slept. ?It was a heartbreaking scene,? he said.
The death toll may rise higher, because heavy lifting equipment is needed to uncover all the remains, said one Western official who had seen the United Nations report.
?This is a matter of grave concern to the United Nations,? Kai Eide, the United Nations 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 United Nations 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,? the statement said, with seven or eight houses ?having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others.?
Mr. 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 cooked food for the ceremony, he said.
How the military came to call in airstrikes on a civilian gathering is unclear. Two members of Parliament, Mr. 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.
Mr. Ahmad blamed United States 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 United States forces in Herat Province, but he declined to answer their questions, saying the United States 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 the American military headquarters in Afghanistan. That statement said in part that the operation killed 25 militants, including a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and 5 ?noncombatants.?
The report said, ?Coalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand district of Herat Province, Friday, may have resulted in civilian casualties apart from those already reported.?
Russia, at odds with the United States and much of the West over its recognition of two breakaway regions in Georgia, on Tuesday circulated at the United Nations a draft of a document known as a ?Security Council press statement? about the airstrike and the civilian casualties that said member nations ?strongly deplore the fact that this is not the first incident of this kind,? The Associated Press reported.
The draft, obtained by The A.P., notes ?that killing and maiming of civilians is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law? and asks for measures to ensure protection of civilians.
The operation in Afghanistan came almost a year after a strike on a village by United States Special Forces in the same district, which caused the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan at the time, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, to recommend a review of American and NATO rules of engagement.
Over the next six months, there was a drop in aerial bombing and civilian casualties in Afghanistan, but the toll increased again with the rise in insurgent activity this summer, as General McNeill handed off authority to the new American commander, Gen. David McKiernan.
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The US military is already in full denial mode, giving their textbook "we only killed militants" response, pending a full investigation. Karzai, the Afghan Ministry Of Interior, an independent Afghan human rights group, and independent press have all stated 76 civilians were killed. The most damning figure is 50 children killed. I'd like to see the US explain away 50 dead children as "militants", even mistakenly. This is NOT the first time the US has bombed scores of civilians and denied it.
Winning hearts and minds.
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writers
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.
Originally the U.S. coalition said the battle killed 30 militants, including a wanted Taliban commander, but U.S. coalition spokeswoman Rumi Nielson-Green said Saturday that five civilians ? two women and three children connected to the militants ? were among the dead.
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."
Azrat said villagers on Saturday threw stones at Afghan soldiers who tried to give food and clothes to them. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically wounded.
"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.