| Al Jazeera, January 24, 2008 |
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A claim by US forces in Afghanistan that they killed 15 Taliban fighters in the eastern province of Laghman, has been disputed by village elders. A US statement said on Saturday that soldiers killed the fighters after coming under fire from opposition fighters. But the elders say all those who died were civilians. “The operation in Mehtar Lam District, approximately 60km northeast of Kabul City, targeted a Taliban commander believed to conduct terrorist activities throughout the Kabul, Laghman and Kapisa provinces,” a US military statement said. “As coalition forces approached the wanted militant’s compound, several groups of armed militants exited their homes and began manoeuvering on the force.” Nine fighters were killed by small-arms fire and four killed by “precision close-aire support”, the statement said, adding that two other fighters were killed during a subsequent serach of the houses in the compound. ‘Civilians killed’ One of the attackers killed in the initial fight was later identified as female, the US military statement said.
But Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, head of the provincial council in Laghman, said village elders had told him in the hours after the raid that those killed were civilians. Rahmzai relayed questions from the Associated Press news agency to the village elders directly, who responded by saying that swear on the Quran that all those killed were innocent. They said that women and children were among the dead, and told Rahmzai that they have no link to Taliban fighters. Independent assessment by journalists and human-rights monitors of the competing claims is complicated by the level of danger in the territory to unarmed outsiders. Competing claims While Afghan villagers have been accused of inflating civilian death claims to receive more compensation, the US military has in the past been charged with not fully acknowledging the deaths of civilians due to its raids. In the immediate wake of a battle in August in the village of Azizabad, the US military said no civilians were killed. Eventually a US investigation found that 33 civilians had been killed in that raid. The Afghan government and the UN said that 90 civilians died in the incident. Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, said last week that the US and countries serving in the Nato military alliance are continuing air raids in civilian areas, despite his call for them to stop. Kabul recently sent Nato headquarters a draft agreement that would give Afghanistan more control over future Nato deployments in the country. The draft also says that Nato troops should no longer conduct searches of Afghan homes. The US military is facing a stern challenge in maintaining order in Afghanistan in the face of a resurgent Taliban. Extra troops US marines are ready to leave Iraq quickly so that 20,000 soldiers can be sent to Afghanistan, James Conway, Marine Corps commandant, said on Friday. “The time is right for marines to leave Iraq,” the senior marine officer said. About 2,200 marines are currently serving in Afghanistan, as part of the 34,000-strong US military contingent there. In all, US military planners are expected to deploy a total of 30,000 extra troops to the country in the next 12 to 18 months, reflecting the emphasis that Barack Obama, the US president, is putting on the war in Afghanistan. And while the US prepares to boost its forces, Karzai is coming under international pressure over the efficacy of his leadership. “They have been holding on to Karzai in the hope of bringing about some semblance of governance in Afghanistan but recently Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that the problems in Afghanistan stem from governance rather than from terrorism,” Imtiaz Gul, a political analyst in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, told Al Jazeera. “If we are to go by what Scheffer says, Karzai’s days are numbered. There are going to be very tough elections in Afghanistan in the next few months.” |
Posts Tagged ‘US forces in Afghanistan’
Dispute over deadly US Afghan raid
January 24, 2009
Gates Pessimistic on Pakistani Support, Insists Strikes Will Continue
September 25, 2008Antiwar.com, September 24, 2008
When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, he claimed that “it is essential for Pakistan to be a willing partner in any strategy” in the troubled border region. However when asked about the prospects for Pakistan backing unilateral US strikes in their country he conceded “I don’t think they can do that.”
Indeed, the Pakistani government and military have gone far beyond simply failing to publicly back America’s recent unilateral strikes. Pakistan’s civilian government has pressured the US to halt such attacks, while its military has declared that it will no longer allow foreign forces to operate in the country. The continued US strikes have led to two reports of Pakistani troops firing on US helicopters attempting to cross the border in as many weeks, and yesterday’s claims of a US Predator Drone being downed in South Waziristan by either tribesmen, troops, or a combination thereof.
But Gates insists the attacks will continue, with or without official imprimatur from Pakistan. He also declared that the greatest threat to the homeland lies in “western Pakistan.” He said he is also hopeful for increasing cooperation in the wake of last weekend’s Islamabad suicide bombing, “particularly if it is shown that al-Qaeda is behind” the attack. An unknown group called Fedayeen Islam claimed credit for the blast.
Rather, there is increasing speculation that the US raids are the cause of the suicide blast and not the solution to it. Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the preliminary investigation suggests a strong connection with South Waziristan Agency. The agency had been an area of relative calm for Pakistan, which has focused its attentions further east in and around the Swat Valley. However after the US strikes, a large tribe threatened to abandon its long-standing peace deal with the Pakistani government if they didn’t bring them to a halt.
A major concern as ties with Pakistan worsen is the transportation of goods to US forces stationed in Afghanistan. Pakistan, according to Senator Levin, is the route for about 80 percent of cargo and 40 percent of fuel to troops in the landlocked country. Pakistan briefly severed the primary supply route earlier this month after a US attack in South Waziristan killed 20 civilians. General James Cartwright, who also spoke to the committee, said the Pentagon has begun testing alternative supply routes to Afghanistan in the event that Pakistan is no longer available to them.
compiled by Jason Ditz [email the author]
US missile attack kills 8 people in Pakistan
September 12, 2008
Officials: Suspected missile strike kills 8 in northwestern Pakistan
MUNIR AHMAD
AP News , Sep 12, 2008 00:29 EST
Explosions caused by a suspected U.S. missile strike killed eight people Friday at a militant stronghold near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said.
Two intelligence officials told The Associated press that the missiles struck a home near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, before dawn.
The officials said the identity of the eight people killed and five others who were injured was not immediately clear.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan are stepping up their efforts to hit Taliban and al-Qaida militants in what they describe as safe havens in Pakistan’s wild border regions, despite stiff protests from Islamabad.
With the insurgency in Afghanistan intensifying, President Bush secretly approved more aggressive cross-border operations in July, current and former American officials have told The AP.
The intelligence officials said agents in South Waziristan had told them about the latest attack. A military official also confirmed the suspected missile attack. He had no information on casualties.
The three officials asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record to media.
North Waziristan is part of a belt of tribally governed territory where Pakistan’s government has little control. The frontier region is considered the most likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No.2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Both the U.S. military and the CIA operate drone aircraft armed with missiles of the type believed to have killed two senior al-Qaida commanders in Pakistani territory earlier this year.
Pakistani officials warn that they strikes will deepen anti-American sentiment in the country and wreck efforts to win over moderate tribal leaders and bring economic development to the impoverished border region.
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Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.
Source: AP News
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