PESHAWAR: Having run out of military targets in Afghanistan with the
exception
of Tora Bora near Jalalabad, the US warplanes wanting to get rid of
their
payloads, have in recent days bombed vehicles carrying civilians and
flattened
villages that have nothing to do with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda's Arab
fighters.
In the latest instance of what has come to be known as collateral damage,
the
US jets killed at least ten civilians and caused injuries to another
12 when they
bombed the Mashikhel village in Jaji district of Paktia province.
Two village mosques were badly damaged in the attack on Monday noon.
The
incident came to light when Mashikhel villagers brought the injured
across the
border to Parachinar, headquarters of Pakistan's Kurram's tribal agency,
for
medical treatment. An eyewitness, Soorat Gul, told reporters in Parachinar
that
the bombing outraged the villagers because there were neither Taliban
nor
Arabs in the village or even in the while area. Earlier on Sunday night,
bombing
by US warplanes killed 16 civilians in the neighbouring Paktika province
that also
borders Pakistan.
Eyewitnesses who reached Peshawar said Paktika's provincial capital,
Sharana,
and Mashkhel village sited 20 kilometres away were bombed by at least
two jets.
The losses were higher in Mashkhel, where four men sitting in "Etkaaf"
in the
Saqawa mosque were among those killed. Among them were two old men,
Haji
Fakhrak and Dadan Khan.
An entire family comprising Ghulam Shah, his wife and four children
was wiped
out in the bombing raid. It was the second time that Mashkhel village
was
bombed. Two weeks ago, the US jets killed four civilians when their
bombs
missed an abandoned Taliban base and instead fell on a populated area.
Earlier, another mosque was hit on the outskirts of Khost town killing
over two
dozens of the faithful when the US warplanes struck in a bid to eliminate
a
former Taliban minister and known mujahideen commander Mulla Jalaluddin
Haqqani. Among the dead were several young Taliban below the age of
15
studying at a nearby madressa to learn the Holy Quran by heart.
The raid took place when the mosque was full during the late evening
Isha'a and
Taraweeh prayers. In another recent incident, a number of villagers
living near
the Shamshad Ghar, where a former mujahideen and Taliban base is located,
were killed in US aerial strikes. The area is close to the border town
of Torkham.
Several reports claimed between 60 to 100 civilians were killed in
the almost
round-the-clock US air raids in the Tora Bora area near Jalalabad.
The massacre prompted elders of the area to condemn the US bombing and
demand an end to the operation. But they found themselves helpless
in the face
of anti-Taliban military commanders such as Haji Mohammad Zaman, Hazrat
Ali
and Haji Zahir who have reportedly received substantial American military
and
monetary assistance to launch a ground offensive against Arab fighters
loyal to
Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization.
Two of the most well documented cases of US bombing of civilian targets
were
Khrum village in Surkhrod district near Jalalabad and Chokar Karez
village in
Daman district of Kandahar province. This was made possible when the
Taliban
took international journalists to the two villages to assess the damage
and meet
survivors and relations of the victims.
Though the Taliban officials and Khrum villagers claimed that about
200 people
were killed in the US aerial strikes, it would be safe to conclude
that the death toll
was about 100. In Chokar Karez, about 50 villagers perished in two
revengeful
bombing sorties by US jets and helicopter gunships.
Almost all the journalists, included those from the West, who visited
the two
villages felt that there were no military targets in the area and that
the US pilots
had erred in their judgement while offloading their payloads. Earlier,
a mosque
was bombed in a village near Herat killing several people.
Besides, a place hit by bombs in Herat was described as an old people's
home
by the US authorities and the human losses regretted. It was a revelation
for
people in this part of the world that an old people's home existed
in Herat
because such institutions have yet to be set up in most eastern countries,
more
so in a tribal society like Afghanistan where the presence of old people
in a
home is considered a blessing.
The bombing errors by US pilots, the straying of the so-called smart
bombs and
the killing of American and pro-US Afghan fighters by friendly fire
have terrorized
large sections of the Afghan population.
The US aerial strikes that began on October 7 have displaced hundreds
of
thousands of people, exposing them to cold and hunger and depriving
them of
dignity. Afghans arriving in Pakistan told The News that driving in
convoys of
vehicles, which is necessary to tackle bandits and highwaymen who have
re-emerged after the collapse of the Taliban regime, has become dangerous
because they are a favourite target of US warplanes. Vehicles driving
on unpaved
rural and mountain roads also become a frequent target because the
Americans
believe these could be Taliban and Al-Qaeda members seeking refuge
in
remote hideouts.
Another dangerous element introduced by the Americans in Afghanistan
is the
misuse of hundreds of satellites phones doled out by them to anti-Taliban
commanders. These commanders are increasingly settling personal scores
by
misleading the Americans to bomb villages and homes of their opponents
by
claiming that these were Taliban or Arab hideouts.
Many Afghans claimed US warplanes bombed places on the basis of wrong
intelligence information fed to them by Afghan commanders having a
vested
interest and killed innocent civilians. It is feared that this trend
would increase
now that the US has assembled an awesome military force in the Arabian
Sea
and in countries neighbouring Afghanistan but the targets to be hit
have
dwindled to just a few.
Source: Jang
