The top commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan has issued a somber apology in an eastern province where US officials say 18 civilians — half of them children — were killed in a coalition airstrike this week.
US Marine General John Allen spent several hours on Friday with local Afghans to express his regrets about Wednesday’s raid to capture a Taliban operative in Baraki Barak district of Logar Province.
“We take these deaths very seriously and I grieve with their families,” Allen told the provincial governor. “I have children of my own, and I feel the pain of this.”
The US-led coalition issued a statement saying that it had completed its initial assessment of the operation and confirmed that “in addition to the insurgents killed during the operation, it’s also responsible for the unintended, but nonetheless tragic, death of Afghan civilians.” Nighttime raids on militants taking cover in villages are a major irritant in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s relationship with the international military coalition. Karzai says the raids put civilians at risk while US military officials say they are key to capturing Taliban.
Allen met first with Provincial Governor Mohammad Tahir Sabari to offer his apology and then moved to a conference room where about 35 people — relatives of the victims, members of the provincial council, Afghan army and police officials and members of parliament — listened stone-faced as Allen repeated his apology.
The governor said that the residents of Logar want the military to take punitive action against those responsible for the deaths.
“We are accepting his apology, but the people who did this — whether they were foreigners or Afghans — should be punished,” the governor said. “If they are not punished, the apology means nothing and there will be no result.”
A deal signed in April was supposed to resolve the controversy surrounding night raids by putting the Afghan government in charge of such operations. Afghan troops were involved in the operation in Logar, but Karzai has put the blame squarely on the international coalition, condemning its actions and calling for it to give a fuller account of how small children were killed.
An Afghan doctor who examined the bodies said villagers told him that a group of Taliban fighters had decided to spend the night in the house because people there were celebrating a marriage and the militants thought the wedding would provide them cover. When coalition troops advanced on the house, they called for civilians to come out, but the insurgents did not allow them to leave, Dr Wali Wakil said.
Allen said the US-Afghan force called in an airstrike after taking fire and that the troops did not know civilians were inside.
Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed according to UN statistics.
The number of Afghan civilians killed dropped 36 percent in the first four months of this year compared with last year — a promising trend though the UN emphasizes that too many civilians are being caught up in the violence.
Anti-government forces, including the Taliban and other militants, were responsible for 79 percent of civilian casualties in the first four months of this year, according to the UN, Afghan and foreign forces were responsible for 9 percent.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS