by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, February 24, 2010
When the record 2009 civilian death toll began to emerge, NATO was quick to brag that they had actually killed fewer civilians than the Taliban. This appears to be the case still, though UN reports suggested the difference wasn’t nearly as dramatic as NATO initially claimed. There is one thing the Taliban can’t compete with NATO on, however, and that’s the killing of children.
| Al Jazeera, Sep 1, 2008 | |||
Nato-led troops have killed three Afghan children and injured seven during artillery fire in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktika. Nato officials said that the attack on Monday happened by accident. The deaths in Paktika province are expected to deepen the rift between foreign forces and the Afghan government. The Afghan government has said that more than 500 civilians have been killed during operations by foreign and Afghan forces this year. ‘Investigation under way’ In the latest incident, troops fired artillery rounds after a patrol came under fire from Taliban fighters in Paktika’s Gayan district, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said. The rounds fell close to a house where the children were later found dead. “ISAF deeply regrets this accident and an investigation as to the exact circumstances of this tragic event is now under way,” the ISAF said in a statement. Dad Mohammad Khan, a former provincial intelligence chief and politician, said: “There is basically no Taliban [killed]. The Taliban fire and then escape and then these people [foreign troops] come and bombard. Three hundred people have been killed and wounded”. The incident came hours after the US-led coalition command said its troops killed more than 220 fighters in a week of fighting in the same province. The coalition did not say where the militants were killed. Fuelling anger Meanwhile in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, hundreds of protesters blocked a road, accusing foreign troops of killing a family of four, including two children. The family members were killed in an overnight raid by international troops, a police official and witnesses said. Residents in Hud Kheil in the east of Kabul said one of the two children was eight months old and grenades killed the family members during a joint Afghan-US special forces operation. However, US special forces said they were not involved. “It was past one o’clock when the troops came and surrounded our houses,” Sulaiman, one resident, said. “They threw hand grenades in one house and killed three family members,” he said. Some locals told Al Jazeera there was an exchange of fire and that the family may have been caught in the crossfire. The latest deaths are likely to further strain relations between Afghanistan and the US and other foreign forces in the country, who have been accused of using excessive force in civilian areas. The operation came a day after Nato said it received information from a “reliable source” that pro-Taliban fighters may be planning to falsely claim that international forces killed up to 70 civilians in southern Afghanistan. The operation also comes after Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, sacked an Afghan army general and a major after more than 100 civilians were reported to have been killed in an attack by US-led coalition forces. Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst level this year, the bloodiest period since the Taliban was forced from power in 2001. |
Source: The Daily Star, August 30, 2008
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
KABUL: An Afghan politician told AFP Friday how he had helped dig out the bodies of women and children after US-led air strikes a week ago, reiterating with another official that around 90 civilians were killed.
The US-led coalition disputes the number and says only five civilians died along with 25 Taliban. US officials have also reportedly questioned the figure because of a lack of physical evidence.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, US defense officials said that the Afghan and UN counts of the civilians killed in the raid were overstated. The sources said that the US administration was pushing for a joint probe into the incident in order to reconcile the conflicting accounts of the incident.
“I saw with my own eyes bodies of 50 boys and girls under 15 years of age,” said Herat provincial councillor Naik Mohammad Ishaq.
“I saw 19 women and seven men. I helped locals to dig them out [of rubble] the first day,” he told AFP.
He said he went to the area of the August 22 strikes in the district of Shindand hours after the attack and he was told that more bodies had been found the day after, taking the toll to 91.
“We lined up the bodies of 76 civilians the first day in the local mosque and the Afghan intelligence department took a video recording as proof that most of them were women, children and all civilians,” he said.
Ishaq said, however, that he did not have pictures of the dead.
The head of a delegation sent by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate also defended the toll figure, similar to one reached by a United Nations team.
“There is no doubt that 90 civilians were killed in the US-led air strike,” said Mohammad Eqbal Safi, the head of the Lower House’s national defense committee.
The team had a list of the names and ages of all those killed, he said, and had interviewed locals and seen eight houses that were destroyed as well as fresh graves.
He claimed body parts – which he said were from civilians – were still at the site when his team arrived two days later.
The 2:00 a.m. strikes had hit people ahead of an event due the following day to mark the anniversary of the death of a fellow villager, Safi said.
“It was public knowledge that it was a gathering for the ceremony and there were no Taliban there.”
Safi said locals believed “agents” had deliberately given wrong information to the US-led and Afghan troops involved in the operation. – AFP
Peace and Justice Post 
Ilan Pappe: A Big Thank You
September 10, 2009By Ilan Pappe, ZNet, Sept 9, 2009
Source: The Electronic Intifada
Ilan Pappe’s ZSpace Page
(Sept 3) — Today was a unique day in the history of media coverage and discussion in Israel. All the electronic agencies, radio and television alike, discussed the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinians and more importantly, the possible price tag attached to it. It lasted only for 12 hours and tomorrow the obedient Israeli media will return to parrot the governmental new message to the masses that the “conflict” has ended and is about to be solved. On the one hand, you already have happy-go-lucky Palestinians in the West Bank (see the latest reports by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times and Ari Shavit in Haaretz). And on the other, alas, those who opted out from the blissful new reality: the oppressed Palestinians who still live under Hamas’ dictatorship in the Gaza Strip.
Continues >>
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