NATO's force in Afghanistan said around 70 people were killed in raids targeting the Taliban this week, but was still unsure how many were civilians after reports that scores of ordinary people died.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) admitted in a statement late on Friday a "number of civilians were killed along with a large number of insurgents" in the Oct. 24 air strike in Kandahar province in the south.
"ISAF believes that around 70 individuals were killed," the statement said.
PHOTO: AP
"We are satisfied that we identified and targeted a group of insurgents, but it is uncertain how many civilians were among the dead. In addition, it is unclear how many of the civilians were killed as a result of insurgent fire."
Residents of the Panjwayi area have said between 60 and 85 civilians were killed in the late-night bombing raid, which started on the second day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Some have said none of the dead were Taliban, but ISAF has said it believed 48 were militants, including from a group that attacked a base.
On Friday it said 12 of the dead were civilians, while the police put the figure at about 25 with a presidential-appointed commission and a separate ISAF and defense ministry team investigating the incident.
The latest incident, just under two weeks after 20 other civilians were reported killed in ISAF strikes in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, has added to concern about the number of locals being caught up in fighting between the Taliban and the military.
President Hamid Karzai on Friday again called for foreign troops to take more care and urged better coordination with local forces.
Karzai met NATO military commander General James Jones at the presidential palace in the capital yesterday for talks that were expected to touch on the civilian toll.
ISAF reiterated its "sincere regret" for any civilian deaths and said it was working with the ministry of defense to investigate what had happened.
Meanwhile, a leading human rights organization said NATO-led troops are not doing enough to prevent civilian casualties in Afghanistan and called on the Western military alliance to establish a program to compensate victims' families.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said NATO's recent operations in Afghanistan have resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians across the country.
"While NATO forces try to minimize harm to civilians, they obviously are not doing enough," Sam Zarifi, the group's Asia research director, said in a statement released in New York on Friday. "NATO's tactics are increasingly endangering the civilians they are supposed to be protecting and turning the local population against them."
Human Rights Watch also said NATO has relied extensively on the use of aircraft to attack insurgent positions.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS