Air attacks hitting civilian districts in Kabul: UN
DUBAI: Qatar's al-Jazeera television reported that US
military strikes on Afghanistan on
Tuesday had killed 93 civilians in a village near Kandahar,
including 18 members of one
family.
The satellite channel said that at least 40 other civilians
were wounded in the attack by US
warplanes on the village some 60 km northeast of Kandahar,
which it identified as Chukar.
It said the 18 family members who died in the attack
had fled Kandahar for safety in the
village following US military strikes on the city, a
Taliban stronghold.
Jazeera broadcast videophone footage provided by its correspondent
in Kandahar,
Youssef al-Shouli, showing a row of corpses wrapped in
white shrouds lined up against
the wall inside a room. At least one of the corpses was
that of a child and a second was
of an elderly man. The television also broadcast footage
of children, women and elderly
men receiving treatment at a hospital in Kandahar.
In a similar atrocity, fleeing refugees told Tuesday how
20 civilians, including nine children,
were killed when a bomb from a US war plane hit a tractor.
One survivor said refugees
were on the back of a tractor at Tarin Kot village in
southern Afghanistan on Sunday when
it was hit by a bomb. Some of those who escaped managed
to cross the border on
Tuesday.
Abdul Maroof, 28, said that after the bombings, injured
people were left screaming for help
with no hospitals nearby in the village, a six hour drive
north of Kandahar, in Uruzgan
province.
After the initial bombing, 25 people decided to flee and
climbed onto a trailer hitched to the
back of a tractor. Faizul Mohammad said as the tractor
was leaving Tarin Kot, US
warplanes homed-in on the village and a bomb hit the
tractor and trailer. Nineteen died in
the strike.
Mohammad lost a foot in the bombing and with six other
survivors travelled to Kandahar in
the back of pick-up trucks where they were told no treatment
was possible. He said the
injured then travelled to Chaman where Pakistan border
guards allowed them to travel to
Quetta for treatment. One of the injured, a women who
had lost four children in the
bombing later died, Mohammad said.
The United Nations said Tuesday that US air attacks were
hitting civilian districts in the
Afghan capital, Kabul, because the Taliban was sending
troops into those areas. "Reports
are indicating that several bombs have hit residential
areas in Khair Khana close to health
and feeding centres," UN spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker
told a press conference in
Islamabad.
"In addition a residential area called Macroyan has been
hit. "Residential areas and some
villages around Kabul are becoming more dangerous because
Taliban troops are moving
into those areas." It further said that a US bomb had
destroyed an Afghan hospital as
Taliban fighters resisted mounting attacks by US warplanes
and opposition forces.
The United States admitted at the same time that a missile
had gone off target in an attack
on the western city. "It was a military hospital in a
military compound on the outskirts of the
city," Bunker said, adding it was believed the bomb fell
on Monday on the eastern outskirts
of the city. Casualties were not known, she said.
The Pentagon also acknowledged on Tuesday US bombs missed
their targets in two
separate incidents over the weekend, striking a residential
area northwest of Kabul and an
open area near a senior citizens home outside Herat
Earlier in the day, a US-led bid to score quick wins over
Taliban forces ahead of
Afghanistan's winter snows met stiff resistance.US forces
and their Afghan opposition
allies pursued a three-pronged attack on Taliban frontline
positions in the north, on the
Islamic regime's southern power base of Kandahar and
targets in and around the capital,
Kabul.
But an assault by opposition forces backed by US military
advisers ran out of steam, while
bombing north of Kabul failed to silence the Taliban
missile batteries that killed at least two
civilians in a rebel-held town.
The defiant Taliban fighters repulsed an offensive by
opposition troops during heavy
fighting around their key northern stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif.
US fighter jets flew in
support of an opposition force, which was accompanied
by small teams of US
commandos, but the rebels failed to capitalise on a three
day bombardment and made no
ground.
US aircraft dropped at least seven bombs on Kabul late
Tuesday as night attacks resumed,
an AFP reporter said. One plane was heard in the night
sky around 8.50 pm (1620 GMT),
followed by the sound of a large explosion within the
limits of the city and mild anti-aircraft
fire from the Taliban militia's gunners. Three more explosions
were heard to the north or
northeast near the airport almost one hour later around
9.35 pm as one or more jets roared
overhead, apparently at a high altitude. Anti-aircraft
fire intensified during the second
attack. US-led forces attacked Kabul twice before dawn
Tuesday morning, but most of the
daylight raids that followed concentrated on Taliban
positions on the frontlines to the north
of the city. --Agencies
Behroz Khan adds: More than 52 people are reported dead
and 30 injured in the latest US
air strikes on different cities and towns of Afghanistan
on Tuesday while Pakistani
tribesmen sent the first convoy of food, medicine and
warm cloths to Afghanistan.
Reports reaching Peshawar and contacts with Taliban officials
in Jalalabad and Kabul
revealed that US-led air attacks continued throughout
the day in Kandahar, Kabul, Paktia,
Kunarh, Uruzgan and Herat provinces, mainly targeting
residential areas.
In Kabul, sources said, as many as 24 persons have been
killed in the fresh air strikes
including some Pakistani nationals, who are believed
to have recently joined Taliban forces
as part of their jihad to fight against the American
ground troops. Taliban sources,
however, did not confirm the killing of 19 Pakistani
nationals, as reported by different
sources and Kabul-based media personnel.
As many as 15 persons have been reported dead and 23 others
injured in the fresh
attacks on Tareen Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan,
the native province of Taliban
supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar.
Taliban officials in Jalalabad and Kabul claimed that
more than 80 persons have been killed
and as many of them injured in Tuesday's bombing of the
populated areas in different
cities, with inflicting more loss to human lives in Kandahar,
Kabul and Uruzgan.
"The residential area of Darul-Aman in Kabul city has
been severely hit, which killed at least
24 persons and scores of others injured. We have been
facing difficulties in dealing with
the rush of victims in hospital", said a Taliban health
department employee. "Our hospital
are short of life saving drugs, surgery tools and other
necessary arrangements", the
employee said on condition of anonymity.
In Kandahar, Taliban officials in Peshawar and Jalalabad
said five persons have been killed
and 25 others were injured, several of them critical,
near the city entrance. "Five persons
were killed and 25 others injured when a bomb hit the
convoy of truck carrying food stuff
and fuel for the city dwellers", informed a Taliban official.
More details of the damage and loss to human lives are
being collected, he said. The US
planes also bombed Kunarh province of Afghanistan for
the first time and dropped several
bombs in Paktia province, which the anti-Taliban forces
believed could be used as
launching paid to install former king Zahir Shah in the
post-Taliban scenario.
"The Americans are bombing Paktia, Khost and the rest
of the area out of frustration as the
local tribesmen refused to stage rebellion against Taliban",
said a Taliban official in
Jalalabad. In Paktia, locals informed, Gora Tangay was
again bombed for the second
consecutive day on Tuesday while several bombs have been
dropped in Azra and the
border area closed to Pakistan's Kurram Agency.
"Why are the human rights organizations keeping mum on
the killing of innocent Afghans
and destruction of cities, towns and villages in the
guise of punishing terrorists", asked the
Peshawar-based vice consul of Afghanistan, Faiz Ahmad
Faiz.
The American and their allies, he said were killing unarmed
people and destroying our
national assets in the name of targeting military installations,
which the Afghan official said,
was against all civilized norms.
Pakistani tribesmen in the remotest Tirah valley claimed
to captured anther 45 armed
fighters of the anti-Taliban forces and confiscated their
weapons. The tribesmen claimed
that these Afghans were buying weapons in Dogar area
of Khyber Agency, pretending as
pro-Taliban fighters, when the locals got suspicious
of their move and arrested them.
"Later they proved to be anti-Taliban fighters and affiliated
with Commander Abdul Haq",
claimed a tribal, Zarbat Shah Afridi. The Zakhakhel Afridis
had claimed last week the arrest
of another 65 loyalists of the Northern Alliance, who
had reportedly set up camps in the
mountains to monitor Taliban movements.
Meanwhile, the first convey carrying food, quilts, medicine
and blood for the affected
people of Afghanistan left Bajuar Agency for Jalalabad
on Tuesday. "We have collected
Rs. 10 million in cash and 85 truck loads of relief goods
for the suffering people of
Afghanistan. We will hand over these goods and the cash
to Taliban officials in Jalalabad",
said, Maulana Faqir Muhammad and Maulana Hafiz Muhammad
Jan, while talking to
reporters before heading for Afghanistan. The Political
Authorities of Bajuar Agency
allowed the 30-trucks convoy to cross into Afghanistan.
Agencies add: Taliban militia on Tuesday claimed 52 civilians
were killed and 37 injured
when US jets bombed a village near the southern city
of Kandahar overnight. Abdul Hanan
Hemat, head of the Taliban's Bakhter information agency,
said Chakoor Kariz village, 15
kilometres southeast of Kandahar, was bombed around 1900
GMT Monday.
"They (US pilots) might have confused the village for
a military camp or a military base but it
was a settlement of nomads who had gathered there to
be close to water," he said. His
claims could not be independently confirmed and US officials
have dismissed similar Taliban
allegations as propaganda.
Earlier Tuesday, Hemat said a US bomb fell on a mosque
in the western city of Herat, killing
and injuring people praying inside. Traces of chemicals
have been found on the bodies of
Afghans injured in US bombing raids, the Taliban ambassador
to Islamabad said Tuesday.
The ambassador, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, made similar
comments to Taliban officials in
Kabul who raised suspicions that the United States was
using chemical weapons. Zaeef
told a press conference that according to the health
authorities in Kandahar, the Taliban's
southern stronghold, "symptoms of chemicals have been
noticed on the bodies of those
injured in American raids."
The head of the Taliban's official news agency in Kabul
on Monday said chemical weapons
had been used but that he had no firm information. Zaeef
said on Tuesday that Osama bin
Laden, the Saudi-born militant under attack by U.S. forces
along with his Afghan
protectors, was still alive.
Asked if bin Laden was still alive after the last few
days of bombing raids, Mullah Abdul
Salam Zaeef simply said: "Yes." Taliban confirmed on
Tuesday that a Japanese journalist
had been arrested for illegally entering the country
and said they were investigating
whether he was a spy.
Zaeef said the journalist had been arrested in eastern
Kunar province and had been taken
to Jalalabad for questioning. "He entered Afghanistan
illegally. He doesn't have any legal
documents to enter Afghanistan. It is the right of any
country to detain who enters illegally
into that country," Zaeef told a news conference.
"In this critical situation, Britain, America and some
other countries claim that they would or
have sent spies for Afghanistan," Zaeef said. "In this
critical situation, of course, anyone is
suspected which enters Afghanistan illegally," he said.
Zaeef said he did not know the name of the journalist,
who has been identified in the
Japanese media as Isamu Iida, a 45-year-old freelance
photographer.
Source: The News
