------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 29, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
Pentagon terror in Afghanistan NO LETUP IN BRUTAL BOMBING By Leslie Feinberg Seen through the tightly focused lens of U.S. media censorship, the Pentagon-led war against Afghanistan is being treated as yesterday's news. The big brass take center stage in news corps briefings. Their message? "The Northern Alliance, with a backbone of U.S. command and firepower, is militarily routing the Taliban to the south. It's almost over. The next countries to be targeted in the crosshairs of Operation Enduring Warfare? No news yet. Stay tuned." But the war looks different below the B-52 bombers in Afghanistan. It's merciless and bloody and terrifying. And it's not over. The facts are painful and grim. It's important not to turn away from the reality of the toll this war is taking on the women, men and children at ground zero in Afghanistan. These are people who have done nothing to anyone in the United States. They have no defense against the powerful aircraft ruling their skies. They are being killed wantonly, in the same arrogant and racist tradition that has led to so many millions of other Third World deaths at the hands of colonial and imperialist armies. Carpet bombing by U.S. Air Force warplanes killed some 150 unarmed Afghan civilians in Khanabad on Nov. 18, reported The Independent in England. As terrified residents fled the town--located a few miles from Kunduz--they described how B- 52 bombers had pounded their civilian neighborhoods with tons of bombs on a daily basis for four days. Refugees said all but a handful of the town's population of 40,000 had fled, many without food, medicine, warm clothing or shoes. Above the stream of homeless Afghanis, B-52s circled nearby, dropping bombs from their bays on nearby hills. Smoke billowed from the echoing detonations. "There are a lot of dead people there," said Farhod, who was displaced from Khanabad along with his parents, sisters and brothers. "I saw 20 dead children on the streets," recalled refugee Zumeray. "Forty people were killed yesterday alone. I saw it with my own eyes. Some of them were burned by the bombs, others were crushed by the walls and roofs of their houses when they collapsed from the blast. When the bombs hit, there was fire everywhere." While the dead remain nameless and faceless in U.S. media reports, Zumeray recalled that the first house hit by the exploding bombs belonged to a man named Agha Padar. TERROR: MADE IN THE USA More than 1,000 people were killed during intense U.S. bombing strikes around the city of Kunduz over the weekend of Nov. 17-18, according to reports in the Hindustan Times. The newspaper quoted Mulla Fazil, a military commander of the Pentagon-backed militia. Fazil told the daily Dawn via satellite phone that the bombing runs had killed some 800 people in Kunduz and 250 in the nearby district of Khanabad. More U.S. air strikes took nearly 140 lives--mostly civilians--near Kandahar on Nov. 16-18, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported. Some 42 people died during the aerial pounding of the Maywand district. "Most of the victims were tribal nomads," the AIP observed. The article added that another 93 people were killed in heavy raids on the eastern provinces of Khost and Nangarhar. Some U.S. media accounts did note in passing that the Pentagon had "damaged" a mosque during a Nov. 16 bombing run. In actuality, the 500-pound laser-guided bomb plowed into a madrassa--an Islamic seminary--killing 62 students during evening prayers. The following day U.S. bombs claimed the lives of 28 people, including 19 members of one family, in the village of Zani Kehl--six miles west of Khost. And one day later, another 30 Afghanis were killed during pre-dawn air strikes on the town of Shamshad, five miles from the border with Pakistan. AIP quoted witnesses who explained that the U.S. jets streaked back for a second attack later when people from adjacent villages were trying to rescue survivors. "I don't know how many people died but it is likely there are many casualties," stated Imtiaz Hussain, administrator of the Edhi Hospital on the Pakistan border. Now that the generals feel that the air war is ruling the skies over much of Afghanistan, more elite U.S. troops are being sent inside to impose control on the ground. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld laughed as he held up pictures of Pentagon troops on horseback for the media cameras. The Pentagon already has hundreds of "special operations" troops inside the country. Rumsfeld added that these elite commandos are shooting to death those it thinks are Taliban and Al-Qaeda members. This is another sinister violation of international norms of conduct. And he said that Pentagon forces will interrogate Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders being held by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
