NATO says night raid killed Afghan insurgents; residents say it killed civilians

[unhappycamper]

NATO says night raid killed Afghan insurgents; residents say it killed civilians
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 18, 2010

SURKHROD, AFGHANISTAN -- District police chief Abdul Ghafour woke to a cellphone call after 1 a.m. Friday: There was gunfire at Rafiuddin Kushkaki's home. Ghafour put on his uniform, sent two police trucks ahead and followed in a third.

"I thought that the Taliban must have attacked this man's house," he said.

He was wrong. It was a raid by U.S. Special Operations forces and their Afghan colleagues, and it left at least nine Afghan men dead in the Surkhrod district of Nangahar province in eastern Afghanistan. NATO describes it as a successful mission that took out ruthless Taliban insurgents. Relatives at the house said it was a slaughter of civilians.

~snip~

On Monday, Kushkaki walked around his property showing the bloodstains of his slain relatives and friends. His son, 16-year-old Habibuddin, and Kushkaki's brother, Hafizuddin, were both shot and killed, he said. An elderly farmer who lived at the house, Sayid Rahim, and four of his sons were also killed, as were two drivers, he said. He said all the home's residents were Tajiks with no links to the insurgency, which is composed primarily of Pashtuns.

Kushkaki described himself as a wealthy man and landowner. He works as a driver for Zahir Qadir, a former Afghan general and the son of a famous tribal leader, Abdul Qadir, who fought the Taliban alongside President Hamid Karzai.



unhappycamper comment: Looks like that Hearts And Minds program still has a few speed bumps.

[Possumpoint]

1. Think About It

Same Difference.

[pgarrison]

2. I've noticed that the residents are always right

The military has been proved to have engaged in cover-ups during this war. See pregnant women killed.

[slipslidingaway]

3. knr nt

[Bragi]

4. Why do the residents always hate freedom? /nt

[G_j]

5. "If the Americans Do This Again, We Are Ready to Shed Our Blood Fighting Them"

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/17/afghans_protest_deadly_nighttime_raid_if



Afghans Protest Deadly Nighttime Raid: "If the Americans Do This Again, We Are Ready to Shed Our Blood Fighting Them"

Mourners continued to gather on Saturday in the small farming village of Koshkaky, in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, where an early Friday morning raid by US and Afghan Special Forces left eight people dead. The military issued a statement saying that their forces came under attack, and in the firefight a Taliban subcommander and seven militants were killed. They reported that no civilians were harmed. But residents here tell a different story. Independent journalist Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films was at the scene and filed this report.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the war in Afghanistan, where the number of civilian casualties continues to mount. Last week, President Obama met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House. At a news conference, Obama addressed the rising number of civilian casualties.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When there is a civilian casualty, that is not just a political problem for me. I am ultimately accountable, just as General McChrystal is accountable, for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed. And that is something that I have to carry with me and that anybody who’s involved in a military operation has to carry with them. And so we do not take that lightly. We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties not because it’s a problem for President Karzai; we have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don’t want civilians killed.


AMY GOODMAN: President Obama did not detail how he or General McChrystal are held accountable when US forces kill Afghan civilians. The number of civilians killed by US forces has spiked in recent years. In the most recent incident, NATO-led forces have been accused of killing between nine and fifteen Afghan civilians in a Friday morning raid near the city of Jalalabad. Hundreds of Afghans set fire to tires and blocked streets to protest the killings. Independent journalist Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films was at the scene and filed this report.

RICK ROWLEY: Mourners continued to gather on Saturday in the small farming village of Koshkaky, in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, where an early Friday morning raid by US and Afghan Special Forces left eight people dead.

The military issued a statement saying that their forces came under attack, and in the firefight a Taliban subcommander and seven militants were killed. They reported that no civilians were harmed. But residents here tell a different story.

NAZIR AHMAD: We woke up when we heard them open fire. They shot three people in the guesthouse, and we thought thieves had come in from the desert. One of my brothers-in-law went to the roof to see who was there. As he climbed the stairs, the Americans shot him, and he died instantly. The second boy was his son. They hit him with a grenade. He survived until five in the morning. He was sixteen years old. He bled to death from the wound in his leg. We went outside to see what was happening, and the Americans were already on top of the walls. They shot and killed five of us.

..more..