| Protests Over U.S. Air Strike on Civilians in Afghanistan | ||
May 7, 2009 -- Farah, Afghanistan
Afghans Staging Angry Protests at 100 Civilians Killed by U.S. Air Strikes in Western Farah Province.
More U.S. 'War Crimes'? Another demonstrator said: "People are really angry and they shout 'Death to America! Death to the invaders! They have killed our innocent people .. that is why we are protesting." "Hurling stones at government buildings and there is some gun fire in the air - but we are not the ones doing that - we don't know who" U.S. investigators on location in Bala Baluk observed first hand, the deaths of many women, elderly and children - all of whom had gathered in what they were told would be "save places" - the very targets of the air strikes. |
Shots were fired on Thursday as the demonstrators threw stones at government offices in the town of Farah, the provincial capital.
The protest came as a team of US and Afghan government investigators arrived in the Bala Baluk district to gather more information about Monday's incident.
"Police tried to disperse them but they started throwing stones at police, who fired into the air." Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, the police spokesman for western Afghanistan, told AFP that up to 30 of the dead were suspected Taliban and the remainder were civilians including children, women and elderly people. Rohul Amin, the governor of Farah province, said Taliban fighters were reportedly using civilian homes to shelter from US-led forces during an operation targeting fighters. The US and Nato forces commander in Afghanistan said it was unclear whether the deaths resulted from US military action. General David McKiernan said US forces launched air raids as they came to the aid of Afghan police who may have been ambushed by the Taliban. He said the Taliban beheaded three civilians, possibly to lure in the police.
"We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties," McKiernan said. Al Jazeera's Nick Clark, reporting from Kabul, said there were a number of conflicting accounts of what had occurred. "The provincial governor told us that no one consulted him about the air strikes," he said.
"It's also been reported that the Taliban themselves killed villagers... There is one account of how they herded together three families and put them in a room and chucked a grenade in there." He said there were accusations that Taliban fighters had been using the local villagers as human shields. "Hopefully this delegation that is in Farah province will give us some kind of clue, some kind of answer to what has transpired," Clark said. "They'll almost be taking a census of the survivors in the village, they'll be taking eyewitness testimonies ... and also they'll be undertaking the grisly task of examining bomb craters to establish if there are any human remains." The US government has come under increasing criticism during the past year for civilian deaths during operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama, the US president, on Wednesday expressed regret for civilian deaths in Afghanistan, vowing to "make every effort" to avoid them in the future. |
