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Afghanistan
U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan
2019-09-20
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State (IS) hideout in Afghanistan killed at least 30 civilians resting after a day’s labor in the fields, officials said on Thursday.
Uh huh. Their weapons were a few feet away so they were "Civilians", huh, Herb?
The attack on Wednesday night also injured 40 people after accidentally targeting farmers and laborers who had just finished collecting pine nuts at mountainous Wazir Tangi in eastern Nangarhar province, three Afghan officials told Reuters.
“Hey, Abdulullah, I heard that if you tell the Americans they killed civilians, they’ll pay good money to apologize.”
“Ya know what, Omarullah, I heard the same thing. Let’s tell them they killed 13 civilians including three wimmin and a goat — we’ll be rich!”
“I have a better idea, Abdulullah: we’ll tell them it was thirty, including seventeen helpless wimmin, five kiddies, and 3 goats — we’ll be even richer!”



"The workers had lit a bonfire and were sitting together when a drone targeted them," tribal elder Malik Rahat Gul told Reuters by telephone from Wazir Tangi.
Any gathering of men is automatically assumed as a terrorist camp and is eligible for targeting. It's how they keep bombing wedding parties.
Haidar Khan, who owns the pine nut fields, said about 150 workers were there for harvesting, with some still missing as well as the confirmed dead and injured.

A survivor of the drone strike said about 200 laborers were sleeping in five tents pitched near the farm when the attack happened.

"Such mistakes cannot be justified. American forces must realize (they) will never win the war by killing innocent civilians," said Javed Mansur, a resident of Jalalabad city.
An ignorant, uneducated man, but he speaks the truth.
Scores of local men joined a protest against the attack on Thursday morning as they helped carry the victims’ bodies to Jalalabad city and then to the burial site.
We just created hundreds of new recruits for the jihadis.
They can’t afford to go a-jihading. They have families to support. Jihad is a young man’s game, if one aims to be a jacket wallah or cannon fodder, or one must be a trained professional with useful skills able to work one’s way up to a #2, #3, or #4.
The Afghan view of events:

“15 Killed, Six Wounded” in US Airstrike In Nangarhar

[ToloNews] Officials from the provincial police claimed on Thursday that "15 people were killed and six maimed" by a "dronezap" in the Khoghyani district of Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province in early morning.

Members of the Provincial Council said the number was 35 killed.

The strike took place in the Wazir Tangi area of the district, police officials said, "while farmers were harvesting peanuts."

A front man for USFOR-A (US forces in Afghanistan) Colonel Sonny Leggett, stated that US forces conducted a precision strike against ISIS
...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
holy warriors in Nangarhar early Thursday morning.

"We are fighting in a complex environment against those who intentionally kill and hide behind civilians, as well as use dishonest claims of non-combatant casualties as propaganda weapons," Leggett said.

"We are aware of allegations of the death of non-combatants and are working with local officials to determine the facts to ensure this is not a ploy to deflect attention from the civilians murdered by the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
at a hospital in Zabul earlier today," he added.

This comes while at least 20 people have been killed and over 100 maimed in a Taliban vehicle bomb close to a government hospital and National Directorate of Security
...the Afghan national intel agency...
(NDS) office in Qalat, capital of Zabul province on Thursday, local officials confirmed.

The Taliban claimed they were targeting the NDS, but local officials said that the government hospital has been destroyed and no NDS employees were hurt.
Related:
Nangarhar: 2019-09-19 Prominent Taliban leader Qari Abdullah dies of wounds from an airstrike
Nangarhar: 2019-09-19 'Historic day': PM Imran inaugurates 24/7 border crossing at Torkham
Nangarhar: 2019-09-19 Suicide bomber, gunmen attack Afghan government building
Posted by: Herb McCoy

#12  From a dope-smoking pinus chilgoza
On Afghan TV, a disclosure:
"By Allah, feels good!
I've got springier wood!
It's halal and it helps your composure!"
Posted by: Anginetle Elmoluter9778   2019-09-20 23:01  

#11  Most, if not by cowardly hiding among civilians, the masquerading as civilians
Posted by: Frank G   2019-09-20 22:31  

#10  And how many of those civilian casualties were/are caused by the Taliban?
Posted by: bbrewer126   2019-09-20 22:27  

#9  "We are aware of allegations of the death of non-combatants and are working with local officials to determine the facts to ensure this is not a ploy to deflect attention from the civilians murdered by the Taliban at a hospital in Zabul earlier today," he added.

100% pure Whataboutism. We murdered civilians, so let's point to the enemy doing the same. After all, we are but two sides of the same coin, amirite Mr. Spokesman?
Posted by: Herb McCoy   2019-09-20 21:36  

#8  The intel that a number of IS jihadis are using the location came directly from the Afghan NDS.

Maybe someone in the intelligence bureaucracy wants to dissuade locals from growing anything except 'the good stuff'. Who's to say the Af administration didn't engineer the incident ?
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-09-20 12:43  

#7  I don't think Ashraf Ghani cares a damn, why should you ?
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-09-20 12:36  

#6  "It's Rooters, Jim."
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2019-09-20 11:48  

#5  Pine nuts? Oh, dear - what am I gonna do to make my pesto now?
Posted by: Raj   2019-09-20 11:34  

#4  Assuming there really were innocent civilians killed in a US drone strike, that would be a tragedy but it has happened before.

Compare Operation Freedom's Sentinel with previous conflicts, even with Operation Enduring Freedom. We have become better at reducing collateral damage but we are not close to reaching zero. No honest person should expect that we will reach it soon.

Interestingly, even some of the terrorist groups have been trying to reduce collateral damage (e.g., Hezbollah, AlQ) because of the bad feelings in the general population after such damage. On the other hand, Syrian Assad forces and ISIS don't seem worried about this.
Posted by: lord garth   2019-09-20 11:31  

#3  One does wonder how the war casualty numbers compare to normal Afghan-on-Afghan violence. These are a people known for shooting up everyone in the vicinity because someone looked at them the wrong way, after all. Not to mention tribal warfare; multi-generational feuds; kidnapping raids; warlords enforcing their lordship; gangsters justifying their targets paying for protection; takfiris enforcing religious compliance on the Hazeras, Buddhists (not that there are many of the latter left, poor things), and insufficiently pious Muslim neighbours; and various jihadi groups, mostly foreign, fighting against the local authorities and everyone else.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-09-20 11:12  

#2  Of course, Herb posted this bullshit
Posted by: Frank G   2019-09-20 08:54  

#1  I recall a lot of German and Japanese civilians (and French) died in air attacks circa 1943-5. Both the Germans and Japanese have been rather shy of war since then. Just saying.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2019-09-20 08:13  

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