This video from CNN in the USA is called NATO Bombing On Afghan Civilians Kills 90.
From Associated Press:
Afghan villagers say airstrikes killed civiliansSee also here. And here. And here. And here.By Noor Khan, AP
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Two Afghan villagers alleged today that airstrikes hit a wedding party in southern Afghanistan and killed or wounded dozens of women and children.
No Afghan officials could immediately confirm the number of alleged casualties, but President Hamid Karzai appeared to refer to the incident at a news conference held to congratulate Barack Obama on his US presidential election victory.
Karzai said his first demand for the new president was to prevent civilians casualties in operations by foreign forces. He then said airstrikes had caused deaths in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province.
“As we speak, there are civilian casualties in Afghanistan,” Karzai said.
BRITISH MILITARY OPPOSES ANY PETRAEUS SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN: here.
Afghanistan Treasures and Bagram Afghanistan: here.
From AFP:
Karzai demands ‘timeline’ on warAfghan wedding bombed in 2002: here.KABUL: President Hamid Karzai demanded at a meeting with a UN Security Council team yesterday that the international community set a “timeline” for ending military intervention in Afghanistan, his office said.
Karzai told a delegation from the Council that his country needed to know how long the US-led “war on terror” was going to be fought in Afghanistan or it would have to seek a political solution to a Taliban-led insurgency.
Air strikes kill dozens of wedding guests
* Comments (Comment40)
JESSICA LEEDER AND ALEX STRICK VAN LINSCHOTEN
From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
November 4, 2008 at 10:39 PM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN Dozens of Afghan civilians are dead and dozens more are wounded after a series of air strikes aimed at Taliban fighters fell short of their target and exploded in the middle of a wedding party in a mountainous region north of Kandahar city, tribal elders and wedding guests told The Globe and Mail on Tuesday.
Survivors of the attacks, which occurred in the village of Wech Baghtu in the district of Shah Wali Kowt on Monday evening, said the majority of the dead and injured were women the bombs struck while male and female wedding guests were segregated, as is customary in Kandahar province.
They said the bodies of at least 36 women have been identified, and hundreds more men and women have been injured. Local leaders have yet to establish a firm casualty count because many of the victims remain buried beneath rubble, said Abdul Hakim Khan, a tribal elder from the district.
In interviews at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, where at least 16 male victims and dozens of female victims were being treated Tuesday night, several villagers described the attack. While Mr. Khan corroborated much of the information witnesses gave during a separate interview, it was not possible to independently verify their account or the numbers of dead and injured they gave.
Witnesses gave conflicting statements about the identity of troops who arrived at the scene after the air attacks, with some saying they saw Canadian soldiers while others said they saw U.S. troops.
It was not immediately clear which international forces were responsible for the air strikes.
A Canadian military source denied that Canada, which has responsibility for Kandahar province, had any involvement. Task Force Kandahar has not been in any significant military engagement in Shah Vali Kowt in the last two days, the source said.
The sparsely populated mountainous region surrounding the village is a known Taliban stronghold. In the past the area has been a target of various anti-insurgent special operations.
Mr. Khan said his village is situated at the foot of a mountain frequented by Taliban insurgents. At the time of the wedding, insurgents on the mountain had attempted to attack troops in the area with an improvised explosive device, Mr. Khan said. Fighting broke out between troops and insurgents after the Taliban began firing from the top of the mountain, which triggered the air strike, he said.
Abdul Zahir, 24, the brother of the bride, said fighting broke out between Taliban and international troops near a crossroads in the village early on Monday. Wedding guests first heard shots from the mountain about 4 p.m. Air strikes followed about half an hour later and lasted about five hours, he said.
While Mr. Zahir was not injured, his sister was severely hurt, as were three of his young cousins, Noor Ahmad, Hazrat Sadiq and Mohammad Rafiq, who range in age from three to five years old. During the interview, they lay sprawled out next to him on tiny hospital cots. Mr. Zahir said that in all eight members of his family were killed, including two of his brothers, Qahir and Twahir, and his grandmother. Fourteen other family members were injured.
The bombing wasn’t the end of the ordeal, witnesses said. When the air strikes were over, they said, international troops arrived in three sand-coloured armoured vehicles.
Villagers reported they were intimidated and prevented from leaving to seek medical treatment while the soldiers took pictures.
The governor of Kandahar province will hold a press conference on the incident Wednesday morning, a spokesman said.
We are collecting information right now about this incident. It’s not complete, the spokesman said.
Alex Strick van Linschoten is a freelancer based in Kandahar
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081104.wafghan1105/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20081104.wafghan1105
Comment by Administrator — November 5, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Afghan Villagers Allege Airstrikes Kill Civilians
Last Edited: Wednesday, 05 Nov 2008, 2:39 AM EST
Created: Wednesday, 05 Nov 2008, 2:39 AM EST
By The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two Afghan villagers are alleging that dozens of women and children attending a wedding party in southern Afghanistan have been killed or wounded by airstrikes.
The two Afghan witnesses told The Associated Press that dozens of women and children had died. They are in the main hospital in Kandahar city alongside wounded relatives.
The U.S. military says it does not yet have any information on the incident.
President Hamid Karzai says there were civilian casualties as a result of airstrikes in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province. He did not say how many civilians were killed or wounded.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press.
Comment by Administrator — November 5, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Villagers say 37 Afghan civilians killed in U.S.-led air strike
www.chinaview.cn 2008-11-05 21:54:42
By Zhang Yunlong
KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) — As many as 37 civilians have been killed in an airstrike of U.S.-led troops in southern Afghanistan while attending a wedding party, local Afghan villagers said Wednesday.
The bombing started at 2 p.m. local time Monday at a village in Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, the Taliban heartland, after the foreign troops, believed to be the U.S. forces in the region, were attacked by Taliban militants from a mountain behind a house where the wedding ceremony was held.
Haji Roozi Khan, owner of the mentioned house, told Xinhua on the spot that the air bombing and firing meant to retaliate on militants who hit the wedding gathering, killing 10 women, 23 children, and four men, all civilians.
“The foreign forces’ firing lasted until late that night and left another 35 people including the bride wounded,” he said.
The Xinhua reporter on the scene Wednesday saw many locals there were searching the debris for their relatives’ dead bodies.
The Afghanistan-based U.S. forces said in a statement it had initiated an investigation into the reported civilian killings and some unit of personnel was dispatched to the site.
While congratulating Barack Obama on his victory in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential elections, Afghan President Hamid Karzai Wednesday called on the new American leadership to prevent from harming and killing civilians in their military operations in Afghanistan, where 70,000 U.S. and NATO troops are fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
“Our first demand is to avoid harming civilians in Afghanistan,” Karzai noted.
Civilian killings are sensitive and continuous happenings of this kind in the past years have spurred common Afghans’ anger, if not hatred, towards U.S.-led foreign troops and undermined the popularity of the Karzai administration.
The bloodiest one in years was on Aug. 22 when a U.S. airstrike in Shindand district of western Herat province, according to the UN and Afghan government probe, claimed over 90 civilian lives, which prompted the Afghan cabinet to pass a historic resolution asking for a re-regulation of foreign troops’ presence in the war-torn country.
The Afghan authorities had asked the U.S. and NATO troops to stop causing civilian casualties but the Western forces, mostly relying on air bombing to kill insurgents, continued to mis-strike civilian targets, either due to misleading information, aimless firing, or self-protection in cases of so-called “escalation of force.”
In several cases, the result of the probe done by the U.S. or the NATO forces usually came late and the figure of civilian deaths confirmed by them is much smaller than reported from the locals.
Obama, the new U.S. president-elect, has said before that he, if got elected, will send 7,000 more troops to the Afghan battlefield, and he also threatened to launch uni-lateral attacks across the Afghan border, saying, if Pakistan is “unable” or “unwilling” to contain the reported escalating cross-border militant violence.
Karzai in his Wednesday talk also demanded a change of strategy of the United States in fighting militants, saying, “The war on terror should be conducted in areas where the sanctuaries of terrorists and their training centers exist.” He is apparently referring to the reported militant hideouts in the tribal areas across the Afghan-Pakistani border, which he has noted repeatedly before should be dismantled to end the insurgency and terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan.
The U.S. forces in Afghanistan had conducted several bombing attacks into Pakistani soil which was said to target militants but sometimes killed civilians. Saying it has the capability to handle militants on its sovereign soil, Islamabad categorically condemned the U.S. cross-border attacks.
Editor: An
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/05/content_10313271.htm
Comment by Administrator — November 5, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
A bombing run by fighter aircraft a short while later destroyed his compound and killed 37 people, including 23 children, 10 women and four men. . . . “What kind of security are the foreign troops providing in Afghanistan?”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan6-2008nov06,0,7682816.story
Comment by Administrator — November 6, 2008 @ 10:10 am
Afghan president sacks transport minister - palace
Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:58pm IST
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has fired his transport minister for “negligence and for carrying out suspicious activities”, the presidential palace said on Monday.
Hamidullah Qaderi’s removal comes amid growing complaints about endemic corruption in Karzai’s government. Karzai has been leading Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.
The decision was taken during a cabinet meeting and Qaderi would face prosecution, the palace said in a statement, without elaborating on what the suspicious activities were. Qaderi could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Qaderi’s removal comes less than a month after Karzai reshuffled some members of his cabinet, which involves former leaders of armed groups and some Western-educated technocrats.
Karzai’s writ of power does not extend beyond major cities and he mostly relies on the West’s help for the Afghan security forces, the budget and consultations over some government appointments.
He faces an election next year and has hinted strongly he will run again.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Paul Tait)
Comment by Administrator — November 10, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
Afghan ‘guards’ killed by US-led forces
20:01 AEST Mon Nov 10 2008
Fourteen Afghan security guards have been killed in a clash with US-led troops, a provincial governor says, despite claims from the US military they were suspected militants who fired first.
Three vehicles at the scene after the fighting in the eastern province of Khost on Sunday were scorched and pocked with bullet holes, an AFP reporter said.
Khost governor Arsala Jamal said the men were security guards for a road construction company, rejecting suggestions from the US-led coalition that the men were anti-government militants.
“None of them is alive to say how it happened … but I know they were not Taliban. They were security guards working for 250 dollars a month,” Jamal told AFP.
Locals said they had seen men in the vehicles raise their arms in a surrender-like gesture before they were fired on.
The US Forces Afghanistan said its troops had stopped three suspicious-looking vehicles, and the occupants had climbed out and opened fire on them.
“There were three vehicles, they got out with weapons and started firing. We returned fire,” Colonel Greg Julian told AFP, adding the men had been armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
“The helicopter was an overwatch and when the suspects started firing, we fired back and the helicopter also fired on the vehicles,” he said.
“Anybody that is going to fire on the coalition is not necessarily a friend of the Afghan government,” he added.
The clash took place about 12 kilometres northeast of the provincial capital, also called Khost, and about two kilometres from an international military base.
The US military said it was looking into the incident with the Afghan interior ministry and had investigators on the scene.
After the troops returned fire, there were explosions in the vehicles, it said in a statement.
“Numerous ammunition belts and small-arms weapons were recovered from the vehicles,” the statement said.
There are tens of thousands of international soldiers in Afghanistan to help the government fight an insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.
There have been dozens of incidents in which they have been accused of killing Afghan security forces or civilians, sometimes by mistake or after false intelligence.
The foreign forces also say militants deliberately operate among civilians for their own protection.
The killing of non-combatants in Afghanistan’s complicated conflict angers the government and risks the public goodwill essential in fighting the insurgency.
President Hamid Karzai spoke out strongly after US-led troops killed 37 civilians in an air strike last Monday aimed at Taliban attackers.
The US military said the civilians were prevented from leaving the scene by militants, who had opened fire on troops as a wedding was underway.
© AFP 2008
Comment by Administrator — November 10, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
we would hope to see a peaceful and green wedding.
Comment by warren — December 27, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
So would I, warren. But do the US generals in Afghanistan hear that?
Comment by Administrator — December 27, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters,
Watch the video
1. Watch the Video
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/?utm_source=rgemail
2. Call Your Representatives
3. Donate
Everything we have all worked toward in our Rethink Afghanistan campaign — interviewing experts, airing debates, passing around parts of the documentary, and signing the petition for Congressional oversight hearings — is starting to pay off. Thanks to your efforts, we were able to bring Rick Reyes, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, to Congress’s attention.
Reyes, a former Corporal in the US Marines of unquestionable military experience and patriotism, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Reyes was powerful and truthful as he expressed serious discontent with the current mission in Afghanistan, telling Congress, “Sending more troops will not make the US safer, it will only build more opposition against us.” It is fitting then, that Reyes sat across from committee Chairman Senator John Kerry, considering yesterday marked the 38th anniversary of when Kerry sat before the same committee, electrifying the nation with his account of the Vietnam War.
Reyes’s testimony raises critical concerns that Congress must address before approving a massive supplemental war funding bill in the next few weeks. Let’s work to halt this war funding bill by calling our Representatives, and urging them not to vote for it until all the questions raised in these hearings have been answered. If you’re not sure who represents you, find out here.
We couldn’t have brought Reyes to Congress’s attention without you. Help us by making a donation of $20, $30, $50, or even $100 to this campaign today, so we can continue making your voices heard in Congress. Your support is paramount to continue the work we’re doing; clearly it’s having an impact! As Reyes told Congress, “I urge you on behalf of truth and patriotism to consider carefully and rethink Afghanistan. More troops, more occupation is not the answer.”
Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Foundation team
Comment by Administrator — April 23, 2009 @ 9:44 pm