- PESHAWAR - Having run out
of military targets in Afghanistan with the exception of Tora Bora near
Jalalabad, the US warplanes wanting to get rid of their payloads, have
in recent days bombed vehicles carrying civilians and flattened villages
that have nothing to do with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda's Arab fighters.
In the latest instance of what has come to be known as collateral damage,
the US jets killed at least ten civilians and caused injuries to another
12 when they bombed the Mashikhel village in Jaji district of Paktia province.
Two village mosques were badly damaged in the attack on Monday noon. The
incident came to light when Mashikhel villagers brought the injured across
the border to Parachinar, headquarters of Pakistan's Kurram's tribal agency,
for medical treatment. An eyewitness, Soorat Gul, told reporters in Parachinar
that the bombing outraged the villagers because there were neither Taliban
nor Arabs in the village or even in the while area. Earlier on Sunday night,
bombing by US warplanes killed 16 civilians in the neighbouring Paktika
province that also borders Pakistan.
Eyewitnesses who reached Peshawar said Paktika's provincial capital, Sharana,
and Mashkhel village sited 20 kilometres away were bombed by at least two
jets. The losses were higher in Mashkhel, where four men sitting in "Etkaaf"
in the Saqawa mosque were among those killed. Among them were two old men,
Haji Fakhrak and Dadan Khan.
An entire family comprising Ghulam Shah, his wife and four children was
wiped out in the bombing raid. It was the second time that Mashkhel village
was bombed. Two weeks ago, the US jets killed four civilians when their
bombs missed an abandoned Taliban base and instead fell on a populated
area.
Earlier, another mosque was hit on the outskirts of Khost town killing
over two dozens of the faithful when the US warplanes struck in a bid to
eliminate a former Taliban minister and known mujahideen commander Mulla
Jalaluddin Haqqani. Among the dead were several young Taliban below the
age of 15 studying at a nearby madressa to learn the Holy Quran by heart.
The raid took place when the mosque was full during the late evening Isha'a
and Taraweeh prayers. In another recent incident, a number of villagers
living near the Shamshad Ghar, where a former mujahideen and Taliban base
is located, were killed in US aerial strikes. The area is close to the
border town of Torkham. Several reports claimed between 60 to 100 civilians
were killed in the almost round-the-clock US air raids in the Tora Bora
area near Jalalabad.
The massacre prompted elders of the area to condemn the US bombing and
demand an end to the operation. But they found themselves helpless in the
face of anti-Taliban military commanders such as Haji Mohammad Zaman, Hazrat
Ali and Haji Zahir who have reportedly received substantial American military
and monetary assistance to launch a ground offensive against Arab fighters
loyal to Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization.
Two of the most well documented cases of US bombing of civilian targets
were Khrum village in Surkhrod district near Jalalabad and Chokar Karez
village in Daman district of Kandahar province. This was made possible
when the Taliban took international journalists to the two villages to
assess the damage and meet survivors and relations of the victims.
Though the Taliban officials and Khrum villagers claimed that about 200
people were killed in the US aerial strikes, it would be safe to conclude
that the death toll was about 100. In Chokar Karez, about 50 villagers
perished in two revengeful bombing sorties by US jets and helicopter gunships.
Almost all the journalists, included those from the West, who visited the
two villages felt that there were no military targets in the area and that
the US pilots had erred in their judgement while offloading their payloads.
Earlier, a mosque was bombed in a village near Herat killing several people.
Besides, a place hit by bombs in Herat was described as an old people's
home by the US authorities and the human losses regretted. It was a revelation
for people in this part of the world that an old people's home existed
in Herat because such institutions have yet to be set up in most eastern
countries, more so in a tribal society like Afghanistan where the presence
of old people in a home is considered a blessing.
The bombing errors by US pilots, the straying of the so-called smart bombs
and the killing of American and pro-US Afghan fighters by friendly fire
have terrorized large sections of the Afghan population.
The US aerial strikes that began on October 7 have displaced hundreds of
thousands of people, exposing them to cold and hunger and depriving them
of dignity. Afghans arriving in Pakistan told The News that driving in
convoys of vehicles, which is necessary to tackle bandits and highwaymen
who have re-emerged after the collapse of the Taliban regime, has become
dangerous because they are a favourite target of US warplanes. Vehicles
driving on unpaved rural and mountain roads also become a frequent target
because the Americans believe these could be Taliban and Al-Qaeda members
seeking refuge in remote hideouts.
Another dangerous element introduced by the Americans in Afghanistan is
the misuse of hundreds of satellites phones doled out by them to anti-Taliban
commanders. These commanders are increasingly settling personal scores
by misleading the Americans to bomb villages and homes of their opponents
by claiming that these were Taliban or Arab hideouts.
Many Afghans claimed US warplanes bombed places on the basis of wrong intelligence
information fed to them by Afghan commanders having a vested interest and
killed innocent civilians. It is feared that this trend would increase
now that the US has assembled an awesome military force in the Arabian
Sea and in countries neighbouring Afghanistan but the targets to be hit
have dwindled to just a few.
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- The News International, Pakistan http://jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2001-daily/12-12-2001/main/main11.htm
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