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US blunders leave 15 children dead in Afghanistan
(The Guardian, December 10, 2003)
The US military announced today that six children and two adults were killed during a US attack on a weapons compound in south-eastern Afghanistan, the second bungled operation in the country to leave child victims in as many days. . . . The six children died on Friday during a night assault on a complex in Paktia province, where a renegade Afghan commander, Mullah Jalani, kept a huge cache of weapons, said Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty. . . . "The next day we discovered the bodies of two adults and six children. We had no indication there were non-combatants in the compound," he said. . . . The tragedy came the day before another serious US military blunder in neighbouring Ghazni province, when nine Afghan children were found dead in a field after an attack by an A-10 ground attack aircraft that was targeting a Taliban suspect. . . . US officials have apologised for that incident. . . . The six children were found crushed to death under a wall that had collapsed during the operation . . . "But ... if non-combatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzers and mortars in a compound known to be used by a terrorist, we are not completely responsible for the consequences," he said. . . . "I can't guarantee that we will not injure more civilians ... I wish I could." . . . The US military originally claimed that Saturday's bungled operation in Ghazni had killed the intended target, former Taliban district commander Mullah Wazir, who is suspected of recent attacks on road workers. . . . But the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said yesterday that they could no longer be certain that this was the case. Villagers say the man killed was a local labourer who had just returned from Iran, and that Mullah Wazir had left the area days before the attack. . . . The deaths of the nine children in Ghazni produced outrage and concern in both the local and international community. . . . Afghan officials warned that such mistakes would undermine support for the US-backed government and tolerance of foreign troops.

posted by Lorenzo 3:27 PM