Party Crashers From Hell
U.S. accuses Taliban of taking a wedding party captive, and drawing fire. NYT:
KABUL, Afghanistan — As Afghan officials reported more civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes on Thursday, witnesses to a strike that apparently hit a wedding party on Monday said the civilian death toll could be more than double the 40 reported so far by Afghan officials.
The United States military says it is conducting a joint investigation with the Afghan authorities into the strike on the wedding party, which took place in the Shah Wali Kot district of the southern province of Kandahar, where the Taliban insurgency has been strong.
On Thursday, American officials offered their first account of the events, saying that insurgents had prevented civilians from fleeing the area, trapping them in a firefight pitting coalition and Afghan Army forces against the militants who had ambushed those forces.
…
(Local residnet Abdul Rahim) said Taliban insurgents had fired some shots from the top of a hill toward a convoy of American vehicles, and the Americans had returned fire. About an hour later, the Americans called in an airstrike, he said. Four houses, including the house where the wedding party was under way, were destroyed, Mr. Rahim said.
…
The United States military, in its statement, made no reference to airstrikes, saying only that militants had “ambushed a coalition security patrol using rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars” and that Afghan and coalition forces had “responded with a variety of weapons fire.”
“Civilians reportedly attempted to leave the area, but the insurgents forced them to remain as they continued to fire” on Afghan and coalition forces, the statement continued. It quoted a local police commander as saying that there had been reports that several civilians had been wounded while trying to leave the area.
The United States statement said nine insurgents had been killed, but did not refer to civilian deaths. But an earlier statement said that “if innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences to the families and people of Afghanistan.”
NYT quotes witnesses, but doesn’t indicate whether any witnessed or were asked about the U.S. claim.
Topics: Afghanistan, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:20 pm on Friday, November 7, 2008
One Response to “Party Crashers From Hell”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
November 9th, 2008 at 2:24 am
“The United States military, in its statement, made no reference to airstrikes …”
vs
“… that Afghan and coalition forces had “responded with a variety of weapons fire.”"
I assume the NYT has problems with the definition of “Quantum” as well.
Cheers