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U.S. Kills Eleven Afghans, Children Included
KABUL,
January 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – For the third
time in a month, U.S. warplanes flattened a house in the Afghan
southern Oruzgan province, killing eleven civilians, including four
children and three women.
The
raid targeted the village of Saghatho in Charcheno district, governor
Jan Mohammad Khan told the BBC on Monday, January 19, one day after
the operation.
The
American forces stormed the village a day earlier under the pretext of
pursuing Taliban fighters.
Lieutenant-Colonel
Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in the Afghan
capital, denied knowledge of the Saghatho strike or civilian
fatalities.
He
said American forces had killed five "armed anti-coalition
militia members" in a weekend air assault in Oruzgan's Deh Rawood
district.
Around
11,000 U.S.-led forces are reportedly hunting Taliban and Al-Qaeda
suspects in southern and eastern Afghanistan, with Afghans charging
that several thousand civilians have been killed in the process.
The
operation was a new episode in a series of American air strikes that
claimed the lives of scores of Afghan civilians, mostly children.
On
Sunday, December 7, the American military admitted killing
nine Afghan children in an air strike on southeast
Afghanistan.
The
Americans also admitted Wednesday, December 10, that its forces had
killed eight people, including
six children, during an assault in eastern Paktia province.
The
killing of Afghan children drew a
wave of criticism from international human rights
organizations and the U.N.
"The
protection of civilians is an obligation that must be observed by
all," said the then U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan
Lakhdar Brahimi.
In
July 2002, an AC-130 gunship bombarded a wedding
party in the Deh Rawood district, killing at least 48 people,
mostly children and women.
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