July 7, 2011
NATO Says Airstrike in Afghan Province Killed Women and Children
By JACK HEALY
KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO forces said Thursday that they had unwittingly killed several women and children a day earlier during an early morning air attack against militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan. The American-led coalition also said it was investigating separate reports of civilian deaths in a nearby province.
The fatal airstrike on Wednesday in Khost Province, which Afghan officials say killed eight children and two women, ignited outrage in neighboring villages, and it could deepen tensions between the Afghan government and Western authorities here.
In late May, President Hamid Karzai gave a stern speech offering what he called his "last" warning [1] about civilian casualties, long a source of acrimony between Afghan officials and NATO forces. Mr. Karzai told NATO to stop bombing Afghan homes, or else it would face "unilateral action" from the Afghan government, and that it risked being viewed as a trespasser and occupying force.
Mr. Karzai did not comment on the latest deaths, and his spokesman did not answer a phone call.
But in Khost, villagers angry over the deaths flooded into the streets. Hundreds of them blocked the main road to the capital and urged the Afghan government to investigate and punish those responsible. One of the villagers, Haji Mir Baz Khan, of the Dowamanda district, said that if the government could not prevent such attacks in the future, "this nation and tribe will announce jihad against them."
Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said the women and children killed in Wednesday's airstrike in the Shamal District of Khost were family members of militants who had been close by when the fighters attacked a combined Afghan-NATO patrol from behind a line of trees.
NATO forces, under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, fell back and called for air support as the militants continued firing, Captain Brockhoff said.
He did not say how many fighters or civilians had been killed, but he said the fighters were members of the Haqqani network, an insurgent group aligned with the Taliban that operates along Afghanistan's lawless eastern border.
The provincial police chief, Sardar Mohammed Zazai, said at least four fighters were killed, among them a prominent Haqqani commander. Mr. Zazai offered a slightly different account of the airstrike, saying that the NATO bomb had hit a home where the fighters had tried to take refuge.
In a statement, NATO forces also said they and Afghan officials were jointly investigating accusations of civilian casualties in Ghazni Province, also in the east, where an airstrike killed a militant who had been planting a roadside bomb. Captain Brockhoff said the military's early reports indicated that only the fighter had been killed.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, 14 police officers were killed in two roadside bombings. Six were killed in the central Oruzgan Province, and eight in the northern Jowzjan Province.
Sangar Rahimi and Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul, and Enayat Najafizada from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/world/asia/01afghanistan.html