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These excerpts come courtesy of the Independent and the Sydney Morning Herald. The full articles can be found at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=102951
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=103102
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/04/world/world10.html
Dozens killed in village 'with no military targets'
War on Terrorism: Air Attacks
By Andrew Gumbel
03 November 2001
Western journalists and human rights organisations published the clearest evidence yet of mass civilian casualties caused by the American bombing campaign yesterday.At least 25 people, and possibly as many as 35, were killed on the night of 22 October in Chowkar-Karez, a small village 25 miles north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, according to reports based on the accounts of eyewitnesses in the village and survivors ferried to hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta.
The Pentagon has confirmed that an AC-130 Spectre gunship attacked the village. According to the villagers, however, there were several aircraft, not just one.
Explosions from the attack, they reported, pulverised the mud walls of houses and gouged craters 15 feet deep in the ground. The planes then returned and opened fire on terrified villagers running through the streets, causing the worst of the casualties ....
A spokesman for the US military insisted the village was a legitimate target. "There was a positively identified Taliban encampment, which included al-Qa'ida collaborators, in the vicinity of Chowkar that was struck in October," the Pentagon official told The Washington Post. "The encampment was fully developed and was a legitimate military target under the law of armed conflict."
Evidence unearthed by Western journalists who visited the village on Thursday, however, suggested the attack might just as easily have been the result of a terrible mistake ....
Visiting journalists counted 18 fresh graves but were told the villagers had not been able to sort out the many severed limbs and body parts to give each person their own final resting place. "As we buried the dead, the planes came again," said an old farmer called Mangal, who claimed to have lost 30 relatives including 12 women and 14 children. "We had to work quickly. Not everyone got their own grave" .....
US special forces injured in night raid on Kandahar
By Severin Carrell and Andrew Gumbel, in Washington
04 November 2001
Taliban troops wounded 12 US Delta Force commandos, injuring three men seriously, in a gun battle two weeks ago, it emerged last night.The firefight between the élite special forces unit and the Taliban took place on the same night as a separate raid by US Rangers parachutists on an airfield near Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. This assault was broadcast to the world as a morale-boosting success for the coalition ....
The Delta Force unit were ambushed by Taliban troops using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers or mortars. "It was a tactical firefight, and the Taliban had the advantage," one officer reportedly said.
On Friday night, US troops staged a risky rescue mission behind enemy lines after a helicopter carrying special forces crash-landed in foul weather, injuring four servicemen on board, the Pentagon said yesterday.
A second US helicopter airlifted the airmen to safety. The abandoned helicopter, an MH-53 Pave Low (as pictured), was then destroyed by by F-14 Tomcat jets to prevent surveillance and communications equipment falling into Taliban hands ....
US helicopter crashes in Afghanistan
A Taliban minister said last night that two US helicopters had crashed in Afghanistan - at least one shot down - leaving up to 50 US troops killed.The United States has admitted losing one helicopter in Afghanistan yesterday in bad weather but said there were only four injured.
Taliban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said the two helicopters crashed close to each other in Nawur district of the eastern province of Ghazni.
One transport helicopter had crashed for unknown reasons and a second helicopter gunship was shot down as it came to rescue the crew of the first, Muttaqi told AFP ....
It was the first confirmed loss of a US aircraft in Afghanistan since the United States launched an air campaign on October 7 against the ruling Taliban militia ....
There was no way to confirm whether the Taliban and the US Defence Department were talking about the same incident.
But the Pentagon has insisted the crash landing was due to severe weather, not hostile fire.
AFP
