The incoming general in charge of US troops along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border vowed to be careful in the use of airstrikes, a contentious issue because of the civilian casualties they have caused.
Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, took over command of all troops in 14 provinces in eastern Afghanistan from outgoing Major General Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, which has spent the last 15 months in the country.
Scaparrotti took only two questions at a media conference on Wednesday, and was immediately asked about civilian casualties.
“We look very closely at the use of close air support in terms of being deliberate and very precise,” Scaparrotti said. “We are here to protect the people of Afghanistan and we intend to pursue our operations with that first in mind, and use CAS [close air support] only where we need to protect our force and complete the mission.”
“But we will be careful in its use,” he said.
A US defense official said on Wednesday that the US military’s failure to follow tightened rules for aerial strikes likely caused civilian deaths in a May 4 US bombing in western Afghanistan.
The finding comes from an internal review of the incident, said the official, who spoke on grounds of anonymity because the investigation was not complete.
The Afghan government says 140 civilians died in the May 4 battle in Farah Province, while US commanders say video evidence recorded by fighter jets and the account of the ground commander suggest no more than 30 civilians were killed, as well as 60 to 65 Taliban.
Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces hunting at least 40 students and teachers still missing after a suspected Taliban ambush have found eight abandoned vehicles and their drivers, officials said yesterday.
They said the pupils and staff from an army-run boarding school in northwest Pakistan may have been taken to the lawless militant stronghold of South Waziristan, as parents of the missing students staged an angry protest.
“Forces and tribesmen raided a tribal village in North Waziristan and recovered eight vehicles, the drivers and luggage of the students,” said Kamran Zeb, a government official in the area.
The militants and their captives, however, were nowhere to be seen.
A convoy of about 30 vehicles carrying staff and students from the college in North Waziristan at the start of the summer holidays was ambushed, and busloads of people were abducted on Monday, officials said.
“If the militants do not release the abducted students in the next 24 hours then the government will launch an operation,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, provincial information minister, said in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the incident but government officials blamed Taliban militants.
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