- Fazal Mohammed, a 42-year-old cart-driver from Kandahar,
is one of the innocent civilians the American bombardment of Afghanistan
is supposed to miss. That is not how it turned out.
-
- "The planes came at nine," he said, sitting
in a hospital bed, his left eye bandaged. "At two in the morning I
buried my son. Then we all left."
-
- What happened to the Mohammed family is a flesh-and-blood
illustration of the meaning of "collateral damage". It was their
misfortune to live in the Luwala district, next door to a Taliban munitions
dump.
-
- "They warned us what was going to happen but we
had no money to leave," said Fazal, who earns a pound a day when he
can find work.
-
- The depot was one of the first targets to be hit in the
war on terrorism. As it went up, it took half of the family's two-room
mud house with it. "My son, Taj, was hit worst." He gestured
with his hands. "His stomach was blown open. He was five years
old."
-
- After he had dragged himself from the rubble and the
mayhem had subsided, Fazal buried Taj. He then paid a driver £15,
every penny he had, to drive himself, his wife Bakhet and his surviving
son and daughter to the Pakistani border.
-
- In another hospital across town, another victim of
another
attack lay stretched out, groaning with pain and shock and swaddled in
bandages from head to foot.
-
- Faez Mohammed, 30, an Afghan refugee, left Quetta a month
ago to do some labouring work in the Helmund region, about 120 miles across
the border. He needed the 80p a day wage to support his wife and nine
children.
-
- Last Thursday he was building a wall with three workmates
when they heard aircraft. He does not remember what happened next but his
injuries tell the story eloquently enough.
-
- The medical notes report a damaged left eye, deep
bruising
all over the body and two crushed legs. His arms were heavily pocked with
puncture marks, the sort caused by flying dirt and grit in a big
explosion.
-
- The two men were able to come to Quetta, 60 miles across
the border, because they had Pakistani papers. Most Afghans are not so
lucky.
-
- Their testimonies suggest that the perception fostered
by the Allies that this war can be fought with minimum civilian casualties
is illusory.
-
- The pattern of dealing with bad news is already
established.
As in the Kosovo war, stories of deadly blunders are initially treated
by American spokesmen as possible enemy propaganda.
-
- Later, as denial becomes untenable, there is a grudging
admission of error - as happened at the weekend when Washington, blaming
pilot error, accepted that a stray missile killed four UN affiliated mine
clearing workers in Kabul.
-
- The longer the air war goes on the greater the
inevitability
of more - and grislier stories - such as those told by the two
Mohammeds.
-
- They and their families are the wretched of the Earth.
All their energies are engaged in the daily struggle to put on the table
the bread, potatoes and soup that is all they can usually afford to
eat.
-
- "I've no sympathy with the Taliban or anybody
else,"
said Fazal. "They say bin Laden came to our town but I know nothing
about it.
-
- "We are poor people. We have no interest in such
things."
-
- He has never seen the images of the events of September
11, the indirect cause of his tragedy, as the Taliban have banned
television.
-
- It is stories like these that are likely to stoke anger
in the Muslim world against the US and its allies. From the victims,
though,
there was no word of bitterness.
-
- "We have no enmity with anyone," said Fazal.
"All we want is peace and that this problem is solved by peaceful
means."
-
- Penniless, wounded, a refugee for the forseeable future,
it is to Islam that he turns as he contemplates his loss.
-
- "He was very small," he said. "It was
too early to think about what he wanted to do with his life - that would
have waited until he was 15 or 16. All I hoped was that he follow the path
of the Prophet, may peace be upon him."
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