- The US military admitted that six Afghan children were
killed in a bombing raid aimed at Islamic extremists, the second assault
within a 24-hour period to result in child casualties.
-
- A US spokesman said Wednesday that the bodies of the
six were found under a collapsed wall after an air raid late Friday in
eastern Afghanistan's Paktia province, among locations hit by a wave of
violence blamed on Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels.
-
- The admission follows protests from the United Nations
and Afghan President Hamid Karzai over a US operation in the neighbouring
province of Ghazni on Saturday that left nine children dead.
-
- The deaths were the latest in a series of so-called "friendly
fire" casualties to blight the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, one
of the worst involving at attack on a wedding party in July 2002 that left
48 dead.
-
- US Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty said aircraft and
ground troops were hunting a Taliban militant identified as Mullah Jilani
when they attacked a compound, 20 kilometres (13 miles) east of Paktia's
capital Gardez.
-
- "After we went there we discovered the bodies of
two adults and six children under a collapsed wall," he told reporters
in Kabul.
-
- "I don't know what caused the collapse of wall because
although we fired on the compound there were other explosions inside the
compound," he said. The colonel did not identify the two adults but
said that Jilani was not found.
-
- Hilferty said troops had come under attack during the
assault, prompting US forces to raid the compound from the air and ground.
Nine suspected militants were captured and a large cache of weapons were
recovered.
-
- He said the assault was not part of Operation Avalanche,
the biggest US offensive in Afghanistan since the 2001 fall of the Taliban,
which was launched last week against extremists in east and south Afghanistan.
-
- Meanwhile, President Karzai has demanded an explanation
for the child deaths at Ghazni and dispatched investigators to the scene.
-
- "It was a sad scene. We are trying to find out ways
in the best possible manner to prevent incidents like that," he said
Wednesday.
-
- "We are thinking if aerial activity is helpful or
if it causes suffering."
-
- The UN has also urged a swift inquiry into the deaths
and wants results to be made public, charging that the blunder "adds
to a sense of fear and insecurity" following similar killings of innocent
civilians.
-
- It warned that civilian deaths had a "negative impact"
on Afghans.
-
- The latest attacks come against a backdrop of rising
violence in many parts of Afghanistan blamed on the Taliban and their allies.
Almost 400 lives have been claimed in the past four months with the US
military under regular attack.
-
- Militants have increasingly targeted aid and reconstruction
workers as well as US and Afghan troops in an apparent bid to undermine
urgently needed rebuilding work.
-
- Some 11,500 US troops are hunting down Taliban and al-Qaeda
holdouts, mainly along the rugged border with Pakistan.
-
-
- Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected
by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence
you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any
way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the
prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.
-
-
-
- Comment
- From David Brandt
- 12-10-3
-
- I have noticed the military's nonchalant attitude about
these children dying in air strikes and tank attacks. I'm sure there are
quite a number of people living in the US justifying and rationalizing
this as well. I recall bumper stickers that said "kick their ass
and take their gas" prior to the invasion of Iraq. The military response
is one of "regrets", kind of like "whoops, sorry!"
How would these same people react if their children were all at a birthday
party, and some country's military jet or tank fired into where the party
was and killed them all? Would they accept a "whoops, sorry",
or a "we regret the loss of innocent life"? I sincerely doubt
it.
-
- Now, here's something interesting concerning hypocrisy.
You can visit any state's website and be greeted with pictures of children
waiting for adoption. Did you know that these states actually make a considerable
amount of money for removing these kids from their homes and adopting them
out? The Mondale Act created a growth industry in this, and while I realize
that there are indeed many children who need help in abusive homes, many
of these kids are taken even with unsubstantiated reports, from poor parents
whose "crime" was being too poor to fight back. How do caseworkers
feel about abuse leading to death, or abuse leading to severe physical
and mental damage? Yet the example shown by the federal government is
that it's somehow "ok", perhaps because it's "somewhere
else". It's not "ok", never has been.
|
