NATO apologises for deaths in Afghan airstrike
The commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan apologised on
Friday for civilian deaths in a coalition airstrike earlier this week —
the first confirmation by NATO forces that civilians were killed in the
operation.
Marine Gen. John Allen flew to Logar province to personally deliver his
regrets to villagers and provincial officials for the deaths of women,
children and village elders in Wednesday's pre-dawn raid to capture a
Taliban operative.
Afghan officials have said the airstrike called in by NATO troops killed 18 civilians.
“I know that no apology can bring back the lives of the children or the
people who perished in this tragedy and this accident, but I want you to
know that you have my apology and we will do the right thing by the
families,” Gen. Allen told the group of about two dozen Afghans gathered
at a base at the provincial capital of Pul-i-Alam.
Night-time raids on militants taking cover in villages have been a
repeated source of strain between the Afghan government, which says the
raids put civilians in the crossfire, and its international allies, who
say such operations are key to rooting out militant leaders.
A deal signed in April was supposed to resolve the issue by putting the
Afghan government in charge of such operations, and the troops involved
in Wednesday's raid included Afghan soldiers. But Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has put the blame for this week's deaths squarely on the
international coalition, condemning their actions and calling for them
to give a fuller account of how small children were among the dead.
NATO and Afghan officials have said the troops were on an operation to
capture a Taliban leader who had holed up in the house in Baraki Barak
district's Sajawand village. As they tried to breach the compound, they
came under fire and fought back, eventually calling in an airstrike.
Villagers have said there was a wedding at the house the evening before
and that it was full of families visiting for the celebration. The
morning after the bombing, they piled the bodies of the dead into vans
and drove them to the provincial capital to protest the airstrike.
An Afghan doctor who examined the bodies and interviewed two women
injured in the airstrike said a group of Taliban fighters decided to
spend the night in the house because they thought the wedding would
provide them cover. When NATO and Afghan troops started advancing on the
house in the middle of the night, they called out for any civilians to
come out, but the militants didn't allow them to leave, said Wali Wakil.
“The Taliban stopped them from getting out of the house,” Dr. Wakil
said. He said the 18 dead civilians including four women, two old men,
three teenage boys and nine young children. Six Taliban fighters were
also killed, Dr. Wakil said, citing the witnesses. Police had said
previously that the district Taliban commander was killed.
Gen. Allen said the troops did not know that there were civilians inside the house when they called in the airstrike.
“They were taken under fire. A hand grenade was thrown. Three of our
people were wounded. We called for the people who were shooting to come
out, and then the situation became more grave and innocent people were
killed,” he told The Associated Press after talking with the group
gathered in Logar.
“Our weapons killed these people,” said Gen. Allen. He declined to
confirm the exact death toll or provide more details on the operation,
citing the ongoing investigation.
In Logar, Gen. Allen met the Governor before taking his message to the
assembled group of Baraki Barak residents and local officials. He
invoked his own family, saying that he kept seeing the faces of his own
children as he thought about the children who had been killed.
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