| Afghanistan | ||
| 21 (terrorist-sheltering) Civilians Killed in Afghan Airstrike | ||
| 2007-05-09 | ||
| KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Airstrikes called in by U.S. Special Forces soldiers fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan killed at least 21 civilians, officials said Wednesday. One coalition soldier was also killed. Helmand provincial Gov. Assadullah Wafa said Taliban fighters sought shelter in villagers' homes during the fighting in the Sangin district Tuesday evening, and that subsequent airstrikes killed 21 civilians, including several women and children. The U.S.-led coalition said militants fired guns, rocket propelled grenades and mortars at U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers on patrol 15 miles north of Sangin. Maj. William Mitchell, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said troops killed a "significant" number of militants. "We don't have any report of civilian casualties. There are enemy casualties I think the number is significant," Mitchell said without releasing an exact figure. A resident of the area, Mohammad Asif, said five homes in the village of Soro were bombed during the battle, killing 38 people and wounding more than 20. He said Western troops and Afghan forces had blocked people from entering the area. 38 killed minus 21 civilians equals 17 terrorists (accepting THEIR numbers).
The battle left one coalition soldier dead, the U.S. military said. The military did not release the soldier's nationality, but it was likely an American Special Forces soldier. The soldier's death brings to 48 the number of NATO or coalition soldiers who have died in Afghanistan this year. Sangin, a militant hotbed in the heart of Afghanistan's biggest opium poppy region, has been the site of heavy fighting in recent weeks. The report of civilian casualties comes less than a week after Afghan officials said that 51 civilians were killed in the western province of Herat. It also comes one day after the U.S. military apologized and paid compensation to the families of 19 people killed and 50 wounded by U.S. Marines Special Forces who Afghanistan's upper house of parliament on Tuesday passed a bill calling for a halt to all international military operations unless coordinated with the Afghan government, action seen as a rebuke of the international mission here. I'm sure getting government approval (Afghan or US Congress) to fight one's way out of an ambush is going to work real well.
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| Afghanistan |
| Ambush, Firefight, Mob Protests in Afghanistan |
| 2007-03-04 |
| Afghan, U.S. reports on firefight differ By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Well, that source makes the whole story perfectly credible. JALALABAD, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines fleeing a suicide bomber and militant ambush on Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 10 people were killed and 35 wounded in the violence, officials said. A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said. As the Americans sped away, they treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar. But Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. military spokesman, said those killed and injured may have been shot by the militants. And those who were not the attackers were more than happy to conceal, or at least avoid revealing, the actual attackers. More than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan's busiest highways a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans on foot and bicycles. "We certainly believe it's possible that the incoming fire from the ambush was wholly or partly responsible for the civilian casualties," Mitchell said. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the chief of the Interior Ministry's criminal division would lead a delegation to Nangarhar province on Monday to investigate. Bashary said it appeared that gunfire from the U.S. soldiers caused most of the casualties. The gunfire from Americans prompted angry demonstrations in the region just 30 miles west of the Pakistan border. Hundreds of Afghans blocked the road and threw rocks at police, with some demonstrators shouting "Death to America! Death to Karzai," a reference to President Hamid Karzai. 'Rent-a-mob' should be pretty easy in this part of 'stan.' At the Jalalabad hospital, several victims said the American convoy approached them on the highway and opened fire. As the convoy neared, many cars pulled over to the side of the road, but were still hit by gunfire. The U.S. forces involved in the attack and ensuing gunfire were part of the U.S.-led coalition, not NATO's International Security Assistance Force. An official who asked not to be identified said the troops were Marine Special Forces. Then I call BS on the 'indiscriminate firing' accusation. A man claiming to speak for Hezb-e-Islami, a group he said is linked with the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the bombing and identified the attacker as an Afghan named Haji Ihsanullah in a telephone call to AP. The spokesman said that the attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of Hezb-e-Islami that was once led by Younis Khalis, a former mujahedeen commander who died last year. The group is now believed to be led by a son of Khalis. |
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| Afghanistan |
| Suicide bomber targets Cheney during visit to Afghanistan |
| 2007-02-27 |
| A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded 11 outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target. The blast happened near the first security gate outside the base at Bagram, killing 19 people, said Khoja Mohammad Qasim Sayedi, chief of the province's public health department. Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said ''18 to 20 dead bodies'' lay on the ground after the blast. Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. ''He wasn't near the site of the explosion,'' Mitchell said. ''He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion.'' However, a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack. ''We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base,'' Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone. ''The attacker was trying to reach Cheney.'' |
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