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US air strike kills 36 wedding guests in Afghanistan
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Karzai calls on Obama to stop civilian deaths by US troops
WOCHA BAKHTA: Weeping Afghan villagers said on Wednesday that a wedding party was turned into a bloodbath after foreign troops unleashed a massive attack killing 36 people, thinking they were targeting insurgents.
Residents of Wocha Bakhta village, 80 kilometres north of Kandahar, said 36 people were killed and several others wounded in hours of fighting on Monday. There was no immediate confirmation of the number of dead. The US military acknowledged there were casualties and said it was investigating.
Villagers told AFP that a wedding lunch had just ended and the bride was preparing to say farewell to her family when it was believed a Taliban insurgent fired at international troops on a nearby hill.
The soldiers returned fire into the village and called for air support, said Abdul Jalil, a cousin of the wounded bride. They surrounded the village. From 2 pm until 12 am, they kept the village under fire from helicopters, jet fighters and troops on the ground, Jalil added.
The father of the bride, Roozbeen Khan, said he had lost six relatives. My wounded son was in my arms, right here, bleeding, he cried, standing next to a large bloodstain. I lost two sons, two grandsons, a nephew, my mother and a cousin, Khan wailed, adding Why? Why? His daughter was among seven of his relatives who were wounded. The groom survived but his father, mother and sister were killed, he said.
Villagers showed AFP a large compound that they said was turned into rubble by the strikes while body parts and bloodstains could be seen in the area. There were 16 freshly filled graves, three of children. The village religious cleric, Mulla Mohammad Asim, said he had counted 36 bodies. They bombed six to seven houses. They pounded and fired into the village from afternoon until midnight, Asim added.
At midnight, the Americans came and they took the men out of the houses and handcuffed them. But when they saw the death and the destruction, they removed the handcuffs and told us to take the wounded to hospital, he said.
They had only managed to take the wounded to hospitals the following day, Tuesday. Seven women, including the bride, and three children were admitted to hospital in Kandahar, the AFP reporter said.
President Hamid Karzai alluded to the civilian casualties in a press conference in Kabul on Wednesday, giving no details. But he called on new US president-elect Barack Obama to stop his troops harming ordinary people as they pursue the war on terror in Afghanistan.
Karzais brother Wali, head of the Kandahar provincial council, said villagers had been killed but the number was not known. Kandahar Governor Rahmatullah Raufi said separately: A number of civilians have been killed and wounded but the number is not clear yet. The Taliban had attacked a US military patrol, he said. The US military said it was investigating with the ministry of interior and had sent personnel to the village. We acknowledge some civilians have been injured and some may have been killed, US Forces spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told AFP.
I cant confirm numbers, he said, adding that the military regretted every time civilians became collateral damage when troops tried to take out militants. Civilians have been killed before military action in Afghanistan, threatening popular support for efforts against the Taliban-led insurgency.
Separately, a roadside bomb blast struck a police patrol south of Kabul on Wednesday, killing five policemen guarding archaeological sites, police said. The officers were in the Miss-e-Ainak area of Logar province when their patrol was hit, provincial police chief Mustafa Mohssini told AFP, blaming the attack on Taliban militants.
Five policemen were killed in the blast which struck their patrol this morning in Miss-e-Ainak area, Mohssini said. They were members of a special unit deployed across Afghanistan to guard archaeological sites and prevent illegal excavation and looting. There have been many locations around Miss-e-Ainak and other parts of Logar province registered as archaeological sites, Hameed Nasiri Wardak, spokesman for the ministry of information and culture, told AFP. These police were deployed to guard those sites.
Meanwhile, seven militants were killed after they attacked a logistics convoy in the Sayed Abad district of Wardak province, sparking a battle with private security guards escorting the vehicles to foreign troops bases. Seven Taliban were killed in the more than 40-minute battle. Their bodies are still at the battlefield, Wardak province police chief Fazel Rehman Muslim told AFP.
Afghan police also seized two suicide vests on Tuesday as they were taken across the border from Pakistan hidden in fruit cartons on a wheelbarrow. The person pushing the wheelbarrow has been arrested, an interior ministry press statement said.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Karzai calls on Obama to stop civilian deaths by US troops
WOCHA BAKHTA: Weeping Afghan villagers said on Wednesday that a wedding party was turned into a bloodbath after foreign troops unleashed a massive attack killing 36 people, thinking they were targeting insurgents.
Residents of Wocha Bakhta village, 80 kilometres north of Kandahar, said 36 people were killed and several others wounded in hours of fighting on Monday. There was no immediate confirmation of the number of dead. The US military acknowledged there were casualties and said it was investigating.
Villagers told AFP that a wedding lunch had just ended and the bride was preparing to say farewell to her family when it was believed a Taliban insurgent fired at international troops on a nearby hill.
The soldiers returned fire into the village and called for air support, said Abdul Jalil, a cousin of the wounded bride. They surrounded the village. From 2 pm until 12 am, they kept the village under fire from helicopters, jet fighters and troops on the ground, Jalil added.
The father of the bride, Roozbeen Khan, said he had lost six relatives. My wounded son was in my arms, right here, bleeding, he cried, standing next to a large bloodstain. I lost two sons, two grandsons, a nephew, my mother and a cousin, Khan wailed, adding Why? Why? His daughter was among seven of his relatives who were wounded. The groom survived but his father, mother and sister were killed, he said.
Villagers showed AFP a large compound that they said was turned into rubble by the strikes while body parts and bloodstains could be seen in the area. There were 16 freshly filled graves, three of children. The village religious cleric, Mulla Mohammad Asim, said he had counted 36 bodies. They bombed six to seven houses. They pounded and fired into the village from afternoon until midnight, Asim added.
At midnight, the Americans came and they took the men out of the houses and handcuffed them. But when they saw the death and the destruction, they removed the handcuffs and told us to take the wounded to hospital, he said.
They had only managed to take the wounded to hospitals the following day, Tuesday. Seven women, including the bride, and three children were admitted to hospital in Kandahar, the AFP reporter said.
President Hamid Karzai alluded to the civilian casualties in a press conference in Kabul on Wednesday, giving no details. But he called on new US president-elect Barack Obama to stop his troops harming ordinary people as they pursue the war on terror in Afghanistan.
Karzais brother Wali, head of the Kandahar provincial council, said villagers had been killed but the number was not known. Kandahar Governor Rahmatullah Raufi said separately: A number of civilians have been killed and wounded but the number is not clear yet. The Taliban had attacked a US military patrol, he said. The US military said it was investigating with the ministry of interior and had sent personnel to the village. We acknowledge some civilians have been injured and some may have been killed, US Forces spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told AFP.
I cant confirm numbers, he said, adding that the military regretted every time civilians became collateral damage when troops tried to take out militants. Civilians have been killed before military action in Afghanistan, threatening popular support for efforts against the Taliban-led insurgency.
Separately, a roadside bomb blast struck a police patrol south of Kabul on Wednesday, killing five policemen guarding archaeological sites, police said. The officers were in the Miss-e-Ainak area of Logar province when their patrol was hit, provincial police chief Mustafa Mohssini told AFP, blaming the attack on Taliban militants.
Five policemen were killed in the blast which struck their patrol this morning in Miss-e-Ainak area, Mohssini said. They were members of a special unit deployed across Afghanistan to guard archaeological sites and prevent illegal excavation and looting. There have been many locations around Miss-e-Ainak and other parts of Logar province registered as archaeological sites, Hameed Nasiri Wardak, spokesman for the ministry of information and culture, told AFP. These police were deployed to guard those sites.
Meanwhile, seven militants were killed after they attacked a logistics convoy in the Sayed Abad district of Wardak province, sparking a battle with private security guards escorting the vehicles to foreign troops bases. Seven Taliban were killed in the more than 40-minute battle. Their bodies are still at the battlefield, Wardak province police chief Fazel Rehman Muslim told AFP.
Afghan police also seized two suicide vests on Tuesday as they were taken across the border from Pakistan hidden in fruit cartons on a wheelbarrow. The person pushing the wheelbarrow has been arrested, an interior ministry press statement said.
