40 Afghan civilians killed as US air strike hits wedding party, victims including 10 women, 23 children

2008-11-06 01:45:43  

·40 Afghan civilians have been killed in an U.S.-led airstrike in Kandahar. ·Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the incident. ·The Afghanistan-based U.S. forces said it had initiated an investigation.

    By Zhang Yunlong

    KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) --

At least 40 Afghan civilians have been killed and 28 more injured as an airstrike of the U.S.-led Coalition forces hit a wedding gathering in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, officials and local villagers said Wednesday.

    The U.S.-led troops called in gunship helicopters Monday afternoon to retaliate on Taliban fighters who earlier that day attacked them at Wech Baghtu village in Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar. However, the air bombing hit a wedding party being held near the hilly area where the Taliban fighters' firing came from, according to locals.

    Condemning the incident, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was saddened by "the killing of 40 civilians and injuring of 28 others in a Coalition air strike," a statement from his office said. "President Karzai has stressed repeatedly in the past that civilian casualties should be avoided but the Coalition forces usually carry out bombing without planning."

    Haji Roozi Khan, owner of the house where the wedding ceremony was held, earlier told Xinhua that at least 37 civilians including10 women, 23 children were killed and 35 others including the bride wounded in the bombing and firing of Coalition forces which lasted from 2 p.m. Monday until late that night.

    A Xinhua reporter at the scene Wednesday afternoon saw many locals there were still searching the debris for their relatives' dead bodies. Locals said the casualties' figure was expected to rise.

    The Afghanistan-based U.S. forces said it had initiated an investigation and dispatched coalition personnel to the site.

    "Though facts are unclear at this point, we take very seriously our responsibility to protect the people of Afghanistan and to avoid circumstances where noncombatant civilians are placed at risk," said a U.S. military statement.

    While congratulating Barack Obama on his victory in Tuesday's U.S. presidential elections, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the new leadership of the U.S. at a press conference earlier on Wednesday to prevent from harming civilians in their military operations in Afghanistan, where some 70,000 U.S. and NATO troops are fighting Taliban fighters.

    "Our first demand is to avoid harming civilians in Afghanistan," Karzai said.

    Civilian killings are sensitive and continuous happenings in the past years have spurred common Afghans' anger, if not hatred, towards U.S.-led foreign troops and undermined the popularity of the Western-backed Karzai administration.

    A 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 post-Taliban nation.

    Though the Afghan authorities repeatedly ask for better coordinated operations of foreign troops and an end to civilian casualties, the Western troops, mostly relying on air bombing to fight insurgents, continue to pound civilian targets, either due to misleading information, aimless firing, or self-protection in cases of so-called "escalation of force."

    In several reported cases, the result of the probe done by the foreign troops usually came late and the figure of civilian deaths they confirmed was much smaller than reported from 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. He also threatened to launch unilateral attacks across the Afghan border, conditionally if Pakistan is "unable" or "unwilling" to contain the reported escalating cross-border militant violence.

    Karzai in his Wednesday talk also demanded from the U.S. a change of its Afghan war strategy, saying, "The war on terror should be conducted in areas where the sanctuaries of (Taliban fighters) and their training centers exist."

    The Afghan leader is apparently referring to the reported militant hideouts in neighbouring Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas, which he has emphasized must be dismantled for ending insurgency inside his own country.

    The U.S. forces in Afghanistan had conducted several bombing attacks into Pakistani side which was said to target Taliban fighters but sometimes killed civilians. Islamabad categorically condemned the unilateral cross-border attacks, saying it has the capability to handle militants on its sovereign soil.

Editor: Yan

Karzai demands Obama end civilian deaths

5. November 2008, 15:03
By NOOR KHAN and JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writers
WECH BAGHTU, Afghanistan –

The Afghan president congratulated Barack Obama and called on him Wednesday to halt civilian casualties as villagers said U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people — most of them children.

President Hamid Karzai said airstrikes cannot win the fight against terrorism.

"Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against (Taliban fighters) with airstrikes," Karzai said. "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States — to put an end to civilian casualties."

Karzai spoke about the deaths at a news conference held to congratulate Obama on his election victory.

Obama has talked about the issue of civilian deaths in the past. In remarks in August that drew criticism from Republicans, he said: "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."

The U.S. military said it was investigating the deaths from bombing of remote Wech Baghtu in the southern province of Kandahar. A villager said American forces had given them permission to bury the dead, which he said included 23 children and 10 women.

A U.S. spokesman, Cmdr. Jeff Bender, added that "if innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences."

Abdul Jalil, a 37-year-old grape farmer whose niece was getting married, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene of the bombing that U.S. troops and Taliban fighters had been fighting about a half mile from his home.

Fighter aircraft destroyed his compound and killed 37 people, Jalil said. Karzai's office said the attack killed about 40 people and wounded 28. The bodies were buried before the AP reporter arrived, and he could not verify the death toll.

Mohammad Nabi Khan, who witnessed the bombing, told AP at the main hospital in Kandahar city that two of his sons, ages 4 and 11, and his wife's brother were among the dead.

"What kind of security are the foreign troops providing in Afghanistan?" he asked.

Wedding parties in Afghanistan are segregated by gender, explaining why so many women and children could have died.

In a statement from his office, Karzai condemned the civilian deaths and urged military forces to avoid Afghan villages and instead concentrate on the "sources" of terrorism, a clear reference to Pakistan.

Civilian casualties, which undermine popular support for the Afghan government and the international mission, have long been a point of friction between Karzai and the U.S. or NATO.

According to an AP count of civilian deaths this year, U.S. or NATO forces have killed at least 275 civilians, while 590 have died from (Taliban)-caused violence like suicide bombs.

The airstrikes in Kandahar come three months after the Afghan government found that a U.S. operation killed some 90 civilians in the a western village. After initially denying any civilians had died there, a U.S. report concluded that 33 civilians were killed.

Following that operation, Karzai said relations between Afghanistan and the United States were seriously damaged.

Jalil said American forces came into his village late Monday night or Tuesday morning — after the bombing run — and searched the villagers and detained some men.

Jalil said he told the Americans that they could search his vineyards and his home but that they wouldn't find any militants.

Elsewhere in Kabul, Gen. David Petreaus, the new chief of U.S. Central Command, met with Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak and assured officials that Obama's victory will not change U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, an Afghan official said.

"Until Afghanistan can stand on its own feet the United States will help," Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi quoted Petreaus as saying.

Many observers expect the U.S. military to change its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan under an Obama administration.

Karzai said he hopes the election will "bring peace to Afghanistan, life to Afghanistan and prosperity to the Afghan people and the rest of the world." He applauded America for its "courage" in electing Obama.

  Taleban warn Obama on troop plans

5. November 2008, 15:13
BBC News -

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan have given a lukewarm response to the election of Barack Obama as the new US president.

"There is neither joy nor sorrow among our ranks by the election of Barack Obama," Afghan Taleban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told the BBC.

He also urged Mr Obama not to send more American troops to Afghanistan.

During a visit to Afghanistan in July, Mr Obama said the country should be the main focus of the "war on terror".

Mr Obama had vowed to send more troops to Afghanistan during his election campaign.

"If Mr Obama follows through on his election pledges, we will not be pleased with his election," Mr Ahmadi told the BBC Urdu Service.

"The question is not about a change in the face of the American president, but a change in American policy."

The spokesman was also asked if the Taliban would be willing to hold talks with the new US administration.

"Talks can only be held on the condition that all American and coalition forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan," he said.

'Armed struggle to continue'

The Pakistani Taliban told Mr Obama not to follow the policies of President Bush.

"Till the time American forces leave Afghanistan and Iraq, and till the US pressure on the Pakistan government is maintained, the change in America's leadership will be a meaningless thing," Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman, told the BBC.

"If President-elect Barack Obama continues the previous policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the implementation of Islamic law in Pakistan is prevented, then our armed struggle against America will continue."