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Afghanistan: NATO-led occupation forces kill more civilians
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has killed more civilians in its ongoing seven-year war of foreign occupation.
Pajhowk Afghan News (PAN), reported on August 15, 2008, that three children of a family were killed in an airstrike by NATO forces in central Logar province. A Logar MP said that three children, including a boy and two girls, were killed in the strike while a pickup and a tractor were also destroyed and 15 sheep killed.
Meanwhile,a Reuters report on August 17, 2008, said that NATO and British officials admitted that day that British troops had accidentally killed four civilians and wounded three others with rockets during an operation against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan.
"The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said women and children were among the casualties, but it did not detail whether they were dead or wounded", said the Reuters report.
A British Ministry of Defense statement said that British paratroopers had been involved in an episode in the Sangin district of Helmand Province on Saturday August 16, which NATO and British forces were investigating.
ISAF 'deeply regrets'
According to this statement, a patrol had spotted insurgents with weapons preparing to attack from the roof of a compound. “In order to protect themselves,” said the statement, the British soldiers “launched three rockets, all of which hit the target. Unbeknown to the patrol, the civilians were inside the compound.”
ISAF “deeply regrets the tragedy,” the statement added.
According to the Reuters report, about 115 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan since late 2001. Most of Britain’s force of 8,000 in Afghanistan is based in Helmand, which has been the focus of intense fighting.
Earlier, on August 11, AFP reported that US forces in Afghanistan admitted that coalition aircraft had dropped a bomb on an "enemy position" which killed eight civilians.
The US claims that the eight civilians were being held in a compound by Taliban militants when they were were killed in an air strike by US-led troops during a battle that also left 25 rebel fighters dead.
The US military statement said that militants had ambushed coalition troops in Uruzgan province on Sunday and then fled into a compound where they held "hostage" 11 civilians, including children.
"Coalition troops called in close-air support to engage the militants hiding in the structure. They did not have knowledge of non-combatants in the buildings at that time," it said.
"Survivors reported that coalition aircraft dropped a bomb on the enemy position which killed eight of the civilians."
The statement did not say who the civilian victims were, AFP reported provincial police chief Juma Gul saying that a child, an old man and youths were among the dead.
The US military said that after the battle in the Khas Uruzgan district had ended troops searched the compound and discovered three survivors. They were taken to a coalition base for treatment.
Mounting civilian casualties pressures Karzai
AFP reported that mounting civilian casualties caused by international forces who were sent to Afghanistan to topple the Taliban seven years ago have angered Afghans including President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai has urged his Western military allies to change their strategy in the "war on terror" and target extremist hideouts in neighbouring Pakistan rather villages in Afghanistan where civilians could be killed.
"The war on terrorism is not in Afghan villages," Karzai said.
"Therefore, the use of air force in the war against terrorism in the Afghan villages will have no result but causing civilian casualties."
Scores of civilians have been killed during operations by international forces pounding militants in Afghan villages with the air strikes said to be up 40 percent this year over last.
More than 60 people, mostly women and children, were killed in air raids by international forces targeting rebels in eastern Afghanistan in early July. One of the strikes hit a wedding party.
There have been several other incidents since then, including soldiers shooting civilians in vehicles that do not stop at checkpoints with fears high of suicide car bombs attacks.
The United Nations said in June that nearly 700 civilians had lost their lives in Afghanistan this year.
Source: RAWA News, international news agencies