Air strike sharpens civilian casualties row

The US military, human rights groups and the President of Afghanistan were yesterday locked in a row over claims that air strikes supporting a joint American and Afghan special forces’ operation had killed at least 70 civilians.

The level of civilian casualties has become a major issue, with the coalition forces regularly accused of accidentally killing innocent Afghans.

Mawlawi Gul Ahmed, a local elder and MP for the Shindand area in the southwest of the country, where the attack took place early on Friday, said he had spoken to villagers who had buried 92 bodies, including women and children.

article continues below

Ahmad Nader Nadery, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said one of its researchers had found that 88 people had been killed, including 20 women.

Ghulam Azrat, director of the middle school in Azizabad, told the Associated Press news agency that he had collected 60 bodies after the bombing. ‘Most of these … were children and women.’

Full article here