Civilians reported killed by Nato in Afghanistan
Airstrikes by Nato helicopters hunting Taliban fighters ripped through three dried mud homes in southern Afghanistan as villagers slept, killing at least nine civilians, including women and children, said residents and the provincial governor.
Shell-shocked, angry villagers in Ashogho condemned the attack, which set back Nato’s hopes of winning local support for their tough counter-insurgency campaign. The airstrikes came at about the same time as a rocket struck a house in a village to the west, reportedly killing 13 people.
“I am not Taliban! We are not Taliban!” Gulab Shah shouted by the rubble of the ruined houses in Ashogho.
Kandahar provincial Gov. Asadullah Khalid said it appeared no Taliban fighters were in the village at the time of the airstrikes, which left giant pieces of mud packed with straw scattered along Ashogho’s narrow lane.
Bibi Farida, a six-year-old whose red hair was matted with dirt, fidgeted and bit down on her scarf as she remembered the assault. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I cried. I just cried.”
The 2am (local time) raid yesterday in the Zhari district of Kandahar province was less than a mile from the scene of September’s Operation Medusa, one of the most ferocious battles between Western forces and insurgents since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that yesterday’s operation in Kandahar was believed to have caused several civilian casualties. The alliance said the operation was meant to detain people involved in roadside bomb attacks in Panjwayi district, which borders Zhari. Nato said it regretted any civilian casualties.
Khalid, who travelled yesterday to Ashogho, about 15 miles west of Kandahar city, said nine people were killed, including women and children, and 11 wounded. Residents said 13 were killed, including four women, and 15 wounded. The governor stuck with his figures when contacted late yesterday by The Associated Press.
Since late 2001, there have been numerous incidents of civilians killed in military operations against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, although US-led coalition and Nato forces say they go to extreme lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
The international troops accuse insurgents of blending in with local populations while attacking foreign and Afghan soldiers. Many other civilians have been killed in Taliban attacks, including scores in recent suicide bombings.
President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly demanded that Nato and US-led coalition forces take more care when conducting military operations in residential areas to avoid civilian casualties, which undermine his government’s already weak standing in parts of the country.
Khalid said Karzai expressed his sympathy after he called the president on his cell phone from the village. “He told them how he hurt for them and how sad he was for their loss,” Khalid said.
One of the homes that was attacked had only one wall standing, and looked ready to topple over. A blast ripped a hole through the middle of another.
Elsewhere yesterday, a rocket hit a house during a night-time clash between suspected Taliban insurgents and Nato and Afghan security forces in the farming village of Tajikai in Helmand province's Grishk district, 135 miles west of Kandahar city, police said.
The rocket attack came after Afghan police called in Nato air support during the clash, which began late Tuesday and left one Taliban militant killed and three police wounded, said provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhel.
Nato said in a statement that its aircraft and helicopters had fired on a “positively identified” compound from where the suspected Taliban were firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.
“Initial bomb damage from an observer on the ground confirmed a direct hit on the compound,” the statement said.
However, Abdul Rehman, a resident contacted by phone, said the rocket fired from an aircraft killed 13 villagers inside the home. He said relatives of the dead told him all those inside the dried mud house – five women, five children, three men - were killed, including the house’s owner, Nabi Khel.
Nato said it will “fully investigate” the claim that civilians were killed in the strike.
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