- The attack on Qalaye Niazi was as sudden and devastating
as the Pentagon intended. American special forces on the ground confirmed
the target and three bombers, a B-52 and two B-1Bs, did the rest, zapping
Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in their sleep as well as an ammunition dump.
The war on terrorism came no cleaner and Commander Matthew Klee, a spokesman
at the US central command in Tampa, Florida, had reassuring news: "Follow-on
reporting indicates that there was no collateral damage."
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- Some of the things his follow-on reporters missed: bloodied
children's shoes and skirts, bloodied school books, the scalp of a woman
with braided grey hair, butter toffees in red wrappers, wedding decorations.
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- The charred meat sticking to rubble in black lumps could
have been Osama bin Laden's henchmen but survivors said it was the remains
of farmers, their wives and children, and wedding guests.
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- They said more than 100 civilians died at this village
in eastern Afghanistan.
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- Survivors lacked the bewilderment common to those who
have been bombed, because they had an explanation: a tribal rival had manipulated
the Americans into attacking Qalaye Niazi to further his political ambitions
in Paktia province.
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- The Pentagon said it had indications that senior Taliban
and al-Qaida officials were at the site and that two surface-to-air missiles
were fired at the aircraft during the December 29 raid. The bombs set off
secondary explosions consistent with stockpiled ammunition.
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- The Pentagon has produced no evidence that missiles were
fired at the planes but there was a stockpile. From the ruins of two houses
yesterday spilled boxes of Russian, Chinese and Iranian rockets.
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- Diehard Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are said to still
rove Paktia and its neighbouring provinces of Paktika and Khost, where
a US soldier was killed at the weekend. Qalaye Niazi's role seemed clear
to Commander Klee: "You have a known al-Qaida-Taliban leadership compound."
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- But survivors say they stored the ammunition six weeks
ago on the orders of retreating Taliban troops. When the regime fell they
notified authorities but no one came to collect the ammunition. "We
left it. What else were we supposed to do with it?" said Taj Mohammad,
the village elder.
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- It was stored in two unfinished houses in a five-house
complex six miles north of the collection of mud-brick compounds which
passes for Qalaye Niazi's centre. The complex housed 10 families who grew
wheat, apples and grapes, said Mr Mohammad.
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- About two dozen guests had crammed into the three occupied
houses for a wedding, raising the number of occupants to more than 100,
said the elder. The bombers came early in the morning.
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- Precision-guided bombs vapourised all five buildings
and a second wave an hour later hit people digging in the rubble and, judging
from hair and flesh on the edge of three 40ft holes some distance from
the complex, those trying to flee.
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- Two days later villagers with shovels and tractors extracted
the remains. A hand, an ankle, a bit of skull, sometimes an entire torso,
and buried some in 11 graves, each said to contain several people, and
relatives from Khost took some for burial in the mountains.
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- Yesterday there were just human scraps and the carcasses
of sheep, dogs and a cow, circled overhead by two crows.
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- One villager said 32 died. The United Nations said 52,
including 10 women and 25 children. Mr Mohammad said at least 80. Other
villagers said 92. Staff at the hospital in Gardez said 107.
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- Innumeracy, rapid burial, damage to bodies, propaganda,
remoteness, they all conspire to shred certainty in this and other bombings.
It is no one's job to count the dead.
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- The UN said its envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi,
will discuss Qalaye Niazi with US diplomats. The Pentagon has shifted slightly
from its initial certitude and promised to investigate a raid which Donald
Anderson, chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee,
denounced as a massive failure of intelligence.
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- That civilians were present there can be little doubt.
Taliban and al-Qaida too? Survivors swear not. Yet there is little venom
for the US. "They were given bad information by bad Afghans,"
said Hinzer Gul, echoing neighbours.
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- Haji Saifullah, head of Paktia's shura, or tribal council,
said: "Our local enemies are delivering this information to the Americans
that Taliban or al-Qaida people are here and Americans just bomb without
any search."
-
- The finger was collectively pointed at Aghi Badshah Khan
Zadran, 58, an anti-Taliban commander who controls Khost province and is
lobbying the interim government to add Paktia and Paktika provinces to
his fief.
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- Some tribal elders said he threatened to call in US planes
against them if they did not back him and that Qalaye Niazi was a warning.
Mr Zadran, also known as Pacha Khan Zadran, was also accused of wiping
out rivals by triggering the US blitz of a convoy of elders on December
20, which killed up to 65 people.
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- Mr Zadran's officials were spotted with US special forces
who relied on him because of his impeccable anti-Taliban credentials, said
aides of his rival, Mr Saifullah.
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- By his own account Mr Zadran is the most powerful commander
in south-east Afghanistan. He hails the bombing as accurate and necessary
to purge terrorists but says he has no idea where the Americans get their
intelligence. He hotly rejects the accusations of manipulating air strikes.
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- The allegations have rattled the prime minister, Hamid
Karzai, who last week summoned Mr Zardan to Kabul to discuss Qalaye Niazi.
But supporters were confident Mr Zadran would return home this week with
his fief expanded to include Paktia and Paktika.
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- "These allegations against him are nonsense. He
is a democrat and pro-west. The government will confirm his appointment
by Tuesday or Wednesday," said Amanullah Zadran, the minister for
frontier and tribal affairs, and Mr Zadran's younger brother.
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- Tribal politics tend to confuse even Afghans and one
US official in Kabul admitted it was impenetrable to outsiders, no matter
how well briefed. "So sure, mistakes happen."
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanist
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