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| Afghanistan | |
| Sr Afghan Official: Unclear If Civilians Died In US Raid | |
| 2004-02-05 | |
| A senior Afghan official said Thursday that it was unclear whether civilians had died in a U.S. airstrike - as President Hamid Karzai and local officials have claimed - and that reports of innocent casualties could be an attempt to discredit U.S. forces. Local officials had said 11 civilians were killed in the Jan. 17 raid on suspected Taliban leaders in the Char Chino district of Uruzgan province. Karzai said Saturday that a government investigation of the strike established 10 civilians had died, including women and children. The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, rejected Tuesday as insufficient the government report and demanded more evidence. The military said it killed five militants fleeing a Taliban meeting. On Thursday, Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister told The Associated Press there were doubts about the evidence and he warned Taliban militants were trying to discredit the American military. "We told all this to the president," Hilalludin Hillal said in an interview. "We cannot find out what really happened in this incident." Hillal said three ministry officials from Kabul traveled to the remote area about a week after the strike, and were shown six graves. "The delegates asked where were the other five, but the people said they fell into the river and were swept away," Hillal said. He said villagers provided a list of names of civilians killed, including children aged two, three and five years. "We have our doubts," Hillal said, suggesting that militants may indeed have been the victims. He said residents and local officials had confirmed that Taliban were active in the area. Scared locals might be telling officials only what militants had told them to say, Hillal said. "The Taliban want to make propaganda against the Americans," he said. "They are coming and going in this region and the people are afraid of them." According to the U.S. military, an AC-130 gunship killed five men leaving a compound in the Char Chino Valley, where it suspected a gathering of midlevel Taliban leaders was going on. U.S. officials said the airstrike was called in when armed men moved through the darkness toward special forces troops and Afghan militia who had surrounded the compound. The military says the men were clearly identified on a videotape shot from the aircraft. Swept away in the river?? Sounds like a bunch of BS to me.
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| Posted by:TS |
| #1 and that reports of innocent casualties could be an attempt to discredit U.S. forces. Marc Herold, call your office... |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-2-5 5:09:02 PM |