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| Afghanistan |
| 51 'civilians' killed in Afghan fighting |
| 2007-05-02 |
| By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer Sounds like an unbiased source. KABUL, Afghanistan - Regional officials said Wednesday that 51 villagers, some of them women and children, were killed in recent fighting in western Afghanistan. That would be the Iranian side of things. The U.S.-led coalition said it had no reports of civilian deaths. The governor of southern Kandahar province also reported some civilians may have been killed during a clash there Tuesday night that left 13 dead, including two women. Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeated his demands that more be done to prevent civilian casualties during military operations, saying he has been meeting regularly with officials of coalition and NATO forces trying to solve the problem. When the terrorists look like civilians and fight from among civilians the ONLY way to prevent civilian casualties is to not fight back (and even that won't always work.) If that is the desired approach, then it's time to go home and let Hamid work it out on his own. "The intention is very good in these operations to fight terrorism. Sometimes mistakes have been made as well, but five years on, it is very difficult for us to continue to accept civilian casualties," Karzai told reporters. "We can no longer accept civilian casualties the way they occur," he added. "It is not understandable anymore." I understand it just fine. See above. The U.S.-led coalition said two military operations conducted between Friday and Sunday by U.S. and Afghan forces in western Herat province's Zerkoh Valley killed 136 suspected Taliban — the deadliest fighting in Afghanistan since January. The bloodshed set off anti-U.S. protests by villagers, That tells me the villagers were willing accomplices. and Mohammad Homayoun Azizi, chief of the Herat provincial council, said two council members who visited the area reported to him that 51 civilians were killed. The officials were part of a high-level delegation including lawmakers, police and intelligence officials who investigated the claim. Azizi said the 51 bodies were buried in three different locations and included women and children. The dead included 12 relatives of a man named Jamal Mirzai, he said. And who is this Jamal guy? A baddie? Or 'just' sheltering some? "People say the coalition troops should cooperate with the government, including Afghan forces. They should also be careful in civilian areas," Azizi said. Sgt. Dean Welch, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said Wednesday that its units were still operating in Herat's Zerkoh Valley, but had no reports of civilian casualties yet. In Kandahar, Gov. Asadullah Khalid said authorities were trying to determine if any civilians were killed during the overnight clash between insurgents and Afghan and foreign forces. He said that when the Afghan-international team surrounded three vehicles carrying men, women and children, Taliban gunmen inside opened fire and the ensuing firefight killed 13 people and wounded 12. No casualties were reported in the Afghan-coalition force. These may have been civilian women and children, but they were NOT innocent. If somebody dies in a bank robbery the driver of the getaway car is guilty of murder too. "We don't know how many civilians or insurgents have been killed or wounded. We are investigating," Khalid said. An earlier statement from the U.S.-led coalition said five male insurgents were killed in the incident in Maruf district and three escaped. It did not give any details of civilian casualties. Reports of civilian deaths have deepened Afghans' distrust of the international forces Even if the reported civilian deaths did not occur, but were orchestrated propaganda. and of the U.S.-backed government as they try to combat a resurgent Taliban militia — itself accused of indiscriminate attacks that often claim civilian lives. University students burned a U.S. flag during a demonstration Wednesday in eastern Nangarhar province to protest the deaths of five people, including a woman and teenage girl, during a coalition-led raid over the weekend. It was the fourth straight day of anti-America protests in the country. A recent Human Rights Watch report said NATO and U.S. operations, including the use of airstrikes and heavy weapons, killed at least 230 civilians last year. However, most of the 900 civilian fatalities during 2006 were from insurgent attacks, it said. And this from Human Rights Watch! |
| Posted by:Glenmore |
| #9 Drag Karzai into one of these battles and give him a gun and have him show us how to do it. |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-05-02 23:44 |
| #8 if you do, try to make it lucid, k? It has much more effect.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-05-02 22:21 |
| #7 yeah bout time too tell karzai too shut the fuck of fuck himself |
| Posted by: sinse 2007-05-02 19:55 |
| #6 If these gutless, yellow dogs insist on hiding among women and children, they should expect all living koranimals in the area to be exterminated. Our troops have no time for sorting under fire. We should make it clear taht everything out front in the battlespace is subject to death and destruction. The choice is made by the gutless Muslims not us. End of discussion. |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter2970 2007-05-02 19:05 |
| #5 I gotta admit that's dang fine Mr. James. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-05-02 17:46 |
| #4 what an excent way to frame the issue wxjames. wish i had thought of it that way. this needs to be spread. |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2007-05-02 15:16 |
| #3 I like that idea, wxjames! We are only instruments of Allan's will! We have no choice, no more than the suicide bombers or terrorists. I think we ought to be testing these Innocent Civilians(TM) for gunpowder residue. |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-05-02 15:10 |
| #2 The US and coalition forces never kill anyone. Our soldiers only direct bits of metal toward assumed enemy combatant's vital parts at high speed. Allan kills them or allows them to survive. It's not up to us. These dead obviously fell out of favor with Allan. Bury them without honor. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-05-02 14:11 |
| #1 For starters, Hamid, to better understand the "civilian" causalties, look under the burka. If "she" has a beard, mustache and testicles "she" ain't a civilian. One way to lower civilian causalties is for the Taliban to refrain from attacking coalition troops while using women and children as cover. But that ain't gonna happen 'cause it's a cultural thingy among the brave lions of Islam. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-05-02 13:10 |