[NYTr] Children die in Afghan air raid - BBC asks for eye-witness info
 
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:30:02 -0500 (CDT)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
BBC News - Jun 18, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6762549.stm

Children die in Afghan air raid

Seven children were killed in a US-led coalition air strike against a
suspected al-Qaeda hideout in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition has
said.

It said a number of militants were also killed in the raid in Paktika
province. The children are believed to have been students at a
madrassa, or Islamic school, at the targeted compound.

In Kandahar province, three coalition soldiers and their Afghan
interpreter died in a bombing. A Nato soldier and two Afghan policemen
died in Uruzgan. 

The Kandahar deaths came after "an improvised explosive device
detonated near their vehicle" on Sunday, the US military said.

Afghan police and coalition forces also fought "prolonged battles" with
militants in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, the coalition says. It
says "several dozen" militants were killed in Helmand but there is no
independent confirmation of this.

Hours before the Sunday night air raid in Paktika, a devastating bomb
attack on an Afghan police bus in Kabul killed 35 people and injured
more than 30 others.

'Saddened'

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman condemned the Paktika air raid.

"The president was very unhappy, very sad when he heard about the
incident," the spokesman, Karim Rahimi, told the BBC.

He renewed President Karzai's call for international forces to work
more closely with the Afghan military.

Paktika's governor, Mohammad Akram Khpalwak, said he had been to the
area to ask for forgiveness from local people and had ordered an
investigation.

Earlier, a coalition statement said the air raid followed "credible
intelligence" that al-Qaeda militants had taken shelter at the complex.

It said the compound in Zarghun Shah in Paktika province, about 120
miles (180km) south of the capital, Kabul, also contained a mosque and
a madrassa (Islamic school).

The statement said that residents of the targeted compound reported
that militants had been at the camp all day.

"This is another example of al-Qaeda using the protective status of a
mosque, as well as innocent civilians, to shield themselves," coalition
spokesman Major Chris Belcher said.

"We are saddened by the innocent lives that were lost as a result of
militants' cowardice."

The coalition later said it did not believe any children were in or
around the compound during the day.

It said other children who survived the air strike alleged that the
seven children who died were held inside the building all day and
beaten and pushed away from the door if they tried to go outside.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says foreign forces in Afghanistan
constantly accuse militants of using civilians as human shields.

There is, however, anger at the rising number of civilians killed in
such foreign-led strikes, and President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly
asked the coalition and Nato-led forces to try to minimise such
casualties, he says.

The fact that the coalition issued this statement quite rapidly
suggests it is expecting a negative reaction, our correspondent says.

Kabul bombing

Sunday's bomb attack on the police bus in Kabul is thought to be the
most devastating bomb attack in the capital since the Taleban were
ousted in 2001.

Police said a number of civilians were also among those killed in the
rush-hour attack close to police headquarters in the city centre.

Five foreigners were wounded in the attack.

The BBC's world affairs editor, John Simpson, says such an attack is
disturbingly new on the streets of Kabul and the tactics appear to have
been borrowed directly from Iraq.

Are you in Afghanistan? Have you witnessed any of the attacks? If you
have any information you would like to share with the BBC you can do so
using the form below:

Name:
Email address:
Town and Country:
Phone number (optional):
Comments:

B) BBC MMVII

       
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