Posted on 07/01/2002 10:26:33 AM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
Afghan official, residents say 250 killed, 400 wounded in blast
BREAKING NEWS MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
KABUL, Afghanistan, July 1 — A bomb dropped by a U.S. plane killed at least 250 members of an Afghan wedding party in an attack on a village in Uruzgan province southeast of Kabul on Monday, residents and a source from the Afghan Ministry of Defense told NBC News on Monday. Pentagon officials said an errant bomb was dropped during a bombing run over a suspected enemy target in southern Afghanistan overnight. While the U.S. officials acknowledged there have been reports of civilian casualties, they said they have no details yet on the numbers of injured or dead.
THE AFGHAN SOURCE said that as many as 400 people might be wounded. Residents said the bombing occurred 105 miles northeast of the southwestern city of Kandahar at about 1 a.m. local time. According to U.S. officials, U.S. and coalition warplanes on routine surveillance encountered anti-aircraft fire in the Uruzgan province and called in airstrikes on the suspected anti-aircraft site. This area is considered Taliban country and a suspected hiding spot for Taliban leader Mullah Omar. At the same time, U.S. military officials told NBC News that an Air Force B-52 dropped precision-guided bombs on suspected enemy targets. It’s not yet clear, however, whether the B-52 is the plane that dropped the errant weapon. Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the local Bakhtar Information Agency the “sudden attack” happened in the Dehrawud district of Uruzgan province. “We are trying to organize aid and a commission has gone there headed by the ministry of frontiers affairs,” he said. U.S. forces have been targeting al-Qaida hideouts in the area. There have been several reports of the United States’ mistakenly attacking civilian targets since Washington’s bombing offensive started in Afghanistan on Oct. 7 last year.
GRENADE HITS U.S. CAMP In a separate development earlier Monday, two rocket-propelled grenades were fired at an airfield in eastern Afghanistan used by U.S. special forces troops, a military spokesman, but no injuries were reported.
Col. Roger King said it was not known who fired the grenades late Sunday, which exploded within the grounds of the airfield near the eastern city of Khost. He declined to say how close the explosions were to U.S. forces, though he said no equipment was damaged. U.S. forces did not return fire because they could not determine which direction the grenades came from, King said. Special forces troops were searching for the source of the attack. “It was enough of a concern that we wanted to go out and find out who was shooting at us,” King told reporters at Bagram air base near Kabul, the capital, which is the headquarters of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. “But it’s not like somebody penetrated our perimeter.” He said the rockets have a range of about 300 yards. About 50 U.S. special forces troops are based at the field in Khost, 93 miles south of Kabul, King said. King also said there had been “sporadic gunfire” near the base during the weekend. He did not elaborate, and it was not clear if the firing was directed at the base. Many Afghans keep weapons, mostly automatic rifles, in their homes for security reasons.
FREQUENTLY A TARGET U.S. troops and their allies have repeatedly come under rocket fire in Afghanistan in recent weeks but have suffered no casualties. Sur Gul, the security chief in Khost, said three rockets were fired in the direction of the airport on Saturday but landed about a mile short.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS U.S. and British troops have been searching the area around Khost and other provinces near the Pakistani border for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. Few fighters have been found. U.S. troops in Khost also came under rocket fire on June 24 and June 25 but suffered no casualties. They dispatched patrols to search for the source of the firing, but the patrol’s results weren’t immediately known. It is not known if al-Qaida, the Taliban or local warlords have been firing the rockets. King said U.S. special forces patrols during the weekend found two large weapons caches in caves in southeastern Afghanistan, the latest in a series of weapons stockpiles uncovered by U.S. and British troops in recent weeks. He said there were signs of recent activity in the caves, found on Saturday and Sunday with the help of Afghan allies near villages in the hills that separate Paktika and Paktia provinces. “There were some things that were found that would lead me to believe that this facility was used within the relatively recent past,’ King said, without elaborating.
TURKS TAKE COMMAND OF AIRPORT On Sunday, NATO’s only Muslim nation, Turkey, took command of the strategic Kabul airport, the key lifeline for the Afghan capital and international peacekeepers stationed there. Turkish air force Col. Kazem Ondul accepted command from Britain of the 2,453-member international force stationed at the airport. Britain is expected to scale back its forces in Afghanistan. On June 20, Turkey — an historic Afghan ally — took command of the 19-nation peacekeeping mission in the capital. “Our mission is to run and maintain the airport up to international standards and one day return it over to the Afghan control,” said Ondul during the formal handover ceremony, which included flyovers by two helicopters and inspection of the Royal Air Force and Turkish troops.
Scores killed in U.S. air raid By Anwar Iqbal From the International Desk Published 7/1/2002 1:38 PM WASHINGTON, July 1 (UPI) -- Reports from Afghanistan say a retaliatory U.S. attack might have killed scores of civilians in southern part of the country, but a Pentagon official said Monday it was not clear whether the deaths were caused by a stray U.S. bomb or by enemy fire. The Pentagon said U.S. forces were reacting to anti-aircraft fire while on patrol. "A coalition aerial patrol mission in Uruzgan province north of Kandahar came under triple-A (anti-aircraft) fire on June 30-1. The triple-A site was engaged in close air support. At least one bomb dropped went errant and it is unclear where the bomb fell," a Pentagon statement issued in Washington said. "We are aware of reports of civilian causalities. It is unclear whether those casualties are from our bomb or from the triple-A fire," it added. But witnesses and hospital officials in Uruzgan said that the U.S. forces mistook celebratory firing in the air as hostile and launched an air raid with helicopter gunships and jets. The people attacked were celebrating a wedding, they added. According to them a bomb fell on the house where a wedding was under way and killed and injured scores of people. It is an old Afghan custom to fire in the air during weddings, and despite previous mistaken attacks on wedding parties by the allied forces the practice has not stopped. Afghan officials in Kabul told journalists that some U.S. Special Forces and other coalition troops are searching for al Qaida and Taliban fugitives in the area. The Pentagon had no details about the type of U.S. aircraft and bombs used in the raid but a CENTCOM spokesman said the command, which is responsible for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, would issue a report later Monday. Witnesses said the raid began at 2 a.m. and continued for two hours. Once the air raid was over, U.S. forces came to the area to probe the ground fire on its patrol, they said. Copyright © 2002 United Press International
MSNBC, CNN and most Dems. are silently cheering....it's time for some new rules for the press during wartime. Understanding basic US History would be a start.
I didn't know Afghanis did 9-11, thought it was Osama bin Laden and his Saudi, Egyptian Al-Quaeda guys.
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