to bail them out. They deserve nothing after 911.
Posted on 07/06/2002 1:03:32 PM PDT by B.Bumbleberry
Kabul (PPI): Afghans Friday continued their protest against killing of innocent Afghans in US bombing raid.
Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated outside the UN compound, against a US bombing raid that is believed to have killed more than 40 civilians on last Monday.“We consider the Americans our liberators, but after this, they may soon become occupiers” Kabul residents said in demonstration.
It is the first time people in Afghanistan have protested against the Americans since the fall of the Taleban regime last year.
The demonstration came as US and Afghan officials investigating the bombing continued to look for clues at the site, in Uruzgan Province.
US forces in Afghanistan say their planes had come under anti-aircraft fire before the attack - but Afghan officials have suggested this may have been celebratory gunfire at a wedding ceremony.
In Kabul, the demonstrators - half of them women covered by traditional burqas - of Taliban days gathered outside the United Nations office to voice their anger.
Many women protesters wore traditional burqas and raised anti American slogans.
“We support coalition measures against the Taleban regime and al-Qaeda,” one of the demonstrator said.
“But we cannot tolerate more innocent victims.” “The Afghans, who have had enough of war and bloodshed in the past 23 years, will react seriously if it is repeated,” said another protester.
The unfortunate incident has alienated many Afghans.
The remote village hit in Monday’s air raid was a former home of the spiritual leader of the deposed Taleban regime, Mullah Mohammad Omar, a US military spokesman said.
However, the spokesman said the raid was not aimed at Mullah Omar - who has eluded capture by US-led forces so far - but at pockets of al-Qaeda fighters.
The US military says ground troops had identified the village where the wedding was held as the source of anti-aircraft fire directed at US planes.
US investigators on the joint US-Afghan fact-finding trip say they have seen some blood at the site, but no bodies or graves so far.
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the US investigators “saw some evidence of damage, but there was no determination of what caused the damage”.
The US investigators are expected to visit additional sites and talk to more people.
The Pentagon says the fact-finding team, led by an Afghan colonel, will take some time to draw up its report.
Survivors say 25 of the dead - all members of a single extended family - were attending a party at the home of Mohammed Sharif,brother of one of President Hamid Karzai’s close allies, to celebrate the marriage of Mr. Sharif ‘s son.
Afghans often fire weapons at weddings, but villagers insist there had been no shooting for several hours before the raid.They say two rockets hit the house where the wedding was being celebrated, and that people fleeing to safety were shot at from the air.
“Everybody started running,” Ahmed Jan Agha, one guest said.“The airplanes were shooting rockets at the people running away.They were chasing us “ he added.
"Many women protesters wore traditional burqas and raised anti American slogans"
The entire story has never sat right. or one thing, it's too much like the other Darwin Award winning Afghan wedding. The locals are too stupid to realize that we freed them from the Taliban through war?? Oh, come on. These people have lived in a war zone for twenty years. THEY SHOULD KNOW BY NOW THAT YOU DON'T FIRE MORTARS IN A WAR ZONE WITHOUT HAVING SOMEONE FIRE BACK.
The loss of innocent life, ANY innocent life, is unconcienable, even when one person's stupidity gets their neighbors killed. It's the neighbors killed by the stupidity of others that we should mourn.
There are too many things wrong with the scenario the Afghans have given us. Too little blood. No bodies. No graves. The Afghan witnesses didn't mention bullet holes, but when the presence of bullet holes caused by a rocket attack were questioned, they accused British special forces of having been firing guns somewhere in the vicinity... and those EXTRAORIDINARY casualty numbers! Oh, and the number of wounded the hospital allegedly transferred to Kandahar without having the facilities to do so, and the fact that the numbers of wounded allegedly transferred exceeds the new total casualty count. I can't shake the feeling that some Afghans, perhaps those who wear burqas and their men, are taking advantage of a tragic error, the truth of which we are desperately trying to find, in order to further their own agendas.
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| Villagers stand by a hole they say was caused by U.S. bombing during a raid on several villages close to Deh Rawud in central Afghanistan, in television footage taken earlier this week. U.S. General Dan McNeill promised a formal probe into the bombing which occurred on July 1, after preliminary investigations established there had been civilian casualties. Photo by Pool/Reuters
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