Afghan strike 'kills civilians'

16. October 2008, 12:40
BBC News -

At least 18 civilians have been killed in an air strike by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, reports say. A BBC reporter in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah saw the bodies - three women and the rest children - ranging in age from six months to 15.

The families brought the bodies from their village in the Nad Ali district, where they say the air strike occurred.

A further nine bodies are said to be trapped under destroyed buildings.

Nato-led forces say they are investigating the incident in an area where the British military are known to operate.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that civilian casualties are hugely damaging to foreign forces trying to wage a "hearts and minds" campaign.

On Sunday, Afghan and UK officials said that dozens of Taleban insurgents died in a battle with Afghan and Nato-led forces on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah.

Three days later they said that a further 18 militants were killed while attacking a police checkpoint in the same area.

'Notorious incident'

Figures released in September by the United Nations said there had been a sharp increase in the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2008.

They showed that August had the highest number of deaths since the overthrow of the Taleban almost seven years ago.

The UN said that from January to August 1,445 civilians were killed - a rise of 39% on the same period last year.

Earlier this month the US military said that air strikes on 22 August killed 33 Afghan civilians, many more than previously acknowledged.

And in what correspondents say is another notorious incident, an Afghan parliamentary investigation in July found that a US airstrike in the same month killed 47 civilians in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Regional officials said the casualties were attending a wedding party and that the bride had been killed.

'Complex attacks'

In a separate incident on Thursday, an Afghan policeman shot dead a US soldier in the eastern province of Paktika. It is the second time that this has happened in recent weeks.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, the the US general in command of Nato and American forces in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, said that the increase in violence over the last year was due to the resurgent Taleban being forced to shift tactics.

He said they were now carrying out "small scale, asymmetric, more complex attacks," on soft targets like civilians, aid workers and government officials.

Two international soldiers killed in Afghan 'friendly fire': military

16. October 2008, 12:37
KABUL (AFP) –

An Afghan policeman killed a US soldier on foot patrol in Afghanistan Thursday and a second international troop was killed by a mortar in another "possible friendly fire" incident, the US military said.

The policeman was in a tower and opened fire on the patrol as it returned to a base in the eastern province of Paktika, the US Forces Afghanistan public affairs office said.

The policeman then threw a hand grenade at the troops, it said in a statement.

A US soldier was killed and "the remaining service members returned fire on the tower, killing the ANP (Afghan National Police) member," it said, without saying why the policeman had attacked the troops.

It was the second such incident in a month. On September 28, a soldier with the separate NATO-led force was shot dead by an Afghan policeman in Paktia province after an argument. The policeman was killed by other troops.

Thursday's incident was being investigated, the force said.

It reported separately that another soldier was killed and several wounded by a "possible errant mortar" round, also in the east of Afghanistan.

"The troops were responding to several small-arms attacks while on a dismounted patrol.

"During the engagements, coalition forces called for mortar fire to eliminate the (alleged Taliban fighters) in the area," it said, describing the death as a "possible friendly fire incident".

The statement did not give the nationality of the killed soldier or the province where the incident occurred. Most international troopers in the east are US nationals.

Thursday's deaths took to 230 the number of international soldiers to lose their lives this year in Afghanistan, where there are around 60,000 troops from nearly 40 countries helping the government to fight a Taliban-led insurgency.

Most were killed in bombs by Taliban fighters. The toll is higher than for the whole of 2007.

German parliament votes to send more troops to Afghanistan

16. October 2008, 12:36
BERLIN (AFP) –

The German Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, voted Thursday to extend Germany's participation in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan and increase the number of soldiers deployed there to 4,500.

The government's proposals were approved by an overwhelming majority, with 442 parliamentarians voting in favour, 96 voted against and 32 abstentions.

The ruling conservative CDU/CSU and the Social Democrat SPD parties both voted in favour, as did the liberal FDP. But a number of members of the environmentalist Green party either abstained or voted against the motion.

The far-left Die Linke party is fundamentally opposed to the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung had defended cabinet proposals to extend the mandate by 14 months until December 2009 and boost troop levels to 4,500.

In an interview on ARD German public television, Jung said that "with the situation in, say, (the northern Afghan province of) Kunduz becoming more critical... an increased number of German soldiers is necessary in the interests of our soldiers' safety".

The reinforcements, demanded by NATO, would also help with the training of Afghan soldiers "so that Afghanistan will itself be capable of assuring its own security," Jung said.

Polls indicate the deployment is highly unpopular in Germany, in part because of its indefinite nature, with a lack of clear goals that would justify a withdrawal at any given point in time.

Jung reiterated that the mandate for elite German troops deployed since 2001 for US-led operations against Taliban fighters was to be terminated.

Such operations are highly controversial in Germany because of the heavy civilian casualties.

The elite German troops will however continue to hunt (Somali fighters defending their country) with an international force in the Horn of Africa.

In Afghanistan, German troops are deployed largely in the north of the country, which is comparatively calm, and Berlin is opposed to their involvement in fighting in the south of the country.