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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan Air-Strike Kills Six Civilians |
| 2009-07-31 |
| [Quqnoos] An air-strike that reported to have hunted down insurgents in southern Afghanistan last Tuesday, appeared to have killed civilians At least six civilians were killed and six others, including four kids, have been wounded Tuesday in an air-strike erupted after Taliban militants ambushed a convoy of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in Mizan district of the southern province of Zabul. Zabul's provincial governor, Mohammad Ashraf Nasiri, confirmed the civilian deaths on Thursday, after visiting the bombed village in his province. "There were civilian casualties caused by the air strike," Quqnoos' Abdullah Abid in the provincial capital, Qalat, quoted governor Nasiri as saying. The officials confirmed that two Taliban insurgents have also been killed in the air raid on Tuesday. Taliban have yet remained silent on this issue. "There were two Taliban fighters killed in the bombing but the remaining several others were villagers," said a tribal elder, Haji Sardar Mohammad. Zabul is a volatile province, neighbouring Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, in the southern Afghanistan. Civilian causalities have been a point of friction between the Afghan government and the United States. Inadvertently killing civilians from US-led air strikes has provoked the anger of Afghan people. Zabul's civilian deaths occurred three weeks after the top US commander for all foreign troops in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, in a new tactical directive urged his troops to prevent targeting Afghan civilians. |
| Posted by:Fred |