NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills 7 Civilians, Including 3 Children

[Purveyor]

By RAY RIVERA
Published: March 26, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — A NATO airstrike targeting Taliban fighters Friday accidentally killed seven civilians, including three children, in the southern province of Helmand, one of the most insecure regions in the country, Afghan officials said.NATO officials are investigating the episode. It occurred in the Now Zad district when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force called in an airstrike on two vehicles believed to be carrying a Taliban leader and his associates. A NATO team assessing the damage discovered the civilians after the airstrike. NATO officials have not disclosed how many civilians were killed and wounded, and did not say whether suspected Taliban were among the casualties.

Afghan officials in Helmand said the dead included two men, two women and three children. Three more children and two adults were wounded, the Helmand governor’s office said in a statement late Saturday.

Civilian casualties have been one of the most contentious issues in Afghanistan, exacerbating tensions in the delicate relationship between international forces and President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Karzai raised the issue again in a speech on Tuesday, listing the reduction of civilian deaths as an issue that must be addressed as Afghan forces begin taking over responsibility for security in some areas of the country this summer.

NATO officials offered only minimal details about the episode Saturday as they investigated. And local authorities in the province were either unreachable or were unaware of the attack because cellphone service has been out in the entire province for much of the last week on orders of the Taliban.

MORE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/asia/27afghanistan.html?_r=1&hp

[Autumn]

1. Hey freedom isn't free

you know. Someone has to pay for it.




:sarcasm:

[somone]

2. Suffer the Little Children

[Angry Dragon]

3. This country creates more terrorists than it kills

I bet if we had more bombs we could really get something done...............

[ixion]

4. Not 'killed'...'liberated'

:sarcasm:

[bvar22]

5. More CHANGE...

Awww....whats the use. :(

[Catherina]

6. Spreading that freedom all around the world. Either directly or by proxy. Rec'd n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. And, to really make them love us, we started another war and bombing campaign.

How very clever of us.

[al bupp]

8. Actually, sir, that's how it's worked out, so far...

Massive demonstrations in Benghazi supporting Air Strike and angry at Russia - (3/23/2011)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Quelle surprise! We took their side in their civil war.

Just as the Mujaheddin were ecstatic when we took their side in Afghanistan. And, the Contras were very cheerful when we took their side in Nicaragua. And, I'll bet the Confederates would have been ecstatic if the Brits and French had intervened in our little bloodbath.

[al bupp]

21. Good point, sir, but in this case...

I happen to think we've chosen what's clearly the right side in this fight, which was quite lop-sided in Gaddafi's favor until the coalition intervened. More to the point, you made a sarcastic statement about howe the Libyans will love us for having do so, obviously intending the opposite. I think we'll see that this intervention was a bold stroke which proves the west is on the side of the Arab street. Whether we can continue to do so in places such as Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain (Syria should be easy) remains to be seen.

[Obamanaut]

9. Number seven comes up a whole lot. It is either very unlucky in

Afghanistan to get into a group with six other people, or someone is making stuff up. I did a search, using 'airstrike afghanistan kills 7', and it came up in several different instances over the last couple of years - here are four of them.

Surely with all those bombs, bullets, debris, and claims of error, all the mistakes can't end up with seven every time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42280821/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

“A provincial governor in Afghanistan's dangerous south said Saturday that seven civilians were accidentally killed when a NATO helicopter fired on two vehicles believed to be carrying Taliban fighters.”

That first one is dated Mar 26, which is this most recent one.

This one has a date of Feb 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7265024/Afghanistan-Nato-air-strike-kills-seven-policemen.html

4:02PM GMT 18 Feb 2010
“The government said an air strike had been ordered after a patrol including Nato and Afghan soldiers and police was attacked by the Taliban in the northern province of Kunduz.
But the air strike instead killed seven of the policemen and injured two others.”

And from Dec 2010 http://www.presstv.ir/detail/154933.html

“US-led airstrike kills 7 Afghan civilians” Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:46AM

Way back in November 2009 we can find http://www.newser.com/story/73537/nato-airstrike-kills-7-afghan-soldiers.html

“A NATO airstrike in the western province of Badghis mistakenly hit a joint base housing coalition troops and Afghan security forces, killing four Afghan soldiers and three policemen, Afghan officials said today.”

[walldude]

13. It's a big conspiracy...

Many haters here at DU have full access to the press, the AP will print whatever these horrible people tell them.

When things start looking good for Obama, like yesterday when he hired Bush's version of Dr Mengele, the haters run out a standard press release about how American bombs killed 7 Afghani people. The AP takes it and runs with it and poof, the haters have their evidence all over the news.

It's disgusting isn't it?

[Obamanaut]

14. I did an edit to include links to four of the articles found.

[Hugabear]

11. And yet somehow, we're supposed to believe that these mistakes WON'T happen in Libya

So either we're being a lot more careful in Libya - which means that we're NOT being careful in Afghanistan - or they're lying when they say that we're not killing civilians in Libya.

[Obamanaut]

16. Or they're lying when they manage to come up with 7 every time. See post 9. nt

[former9thward]

18. First google hit on "incidents of civilian deaths in Afghanistan".

In the last month -- one where 9 died and one where 12 died. I guess they weren't told about the 7 conspiracy. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/8961406/hundreds-protest-civilian-deaths-in-afghan-capital/

[Obamanaut]

20. Did you read the earlier post? Did you see what I put in the search block?

It was plain. Could that be why the results were different? You think? Here's part of the post for you. Wasn't that hard.

I did a search, using 'airstrike afghanistan kills 7', an

See the difference now? Don't be the next person in a group of six. It's not healthy according to many reports.

[malaise]

12. Just collateral damage - only brown people

Moving along. :sarcasm:

[Obamanaut]

15. But it seems to be seven brown people quite often. There are not that

many coincidences when that many bombs and bullets are flying.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=745457&mesg_id=746347 That post has links to only four of the articles found listing seven deaths over the last couple of years.

[VermeerLives]

17. The longer we are involved in Libya the more likely a similar incident will happen,

certain in fact. And what about what the rebels are likely to do to civilian Qaddafi supporters? Will the press whores even report such incidents? We have seen how Muslims supposedly on our side in Afghanistan react to this.

[Forkboy]

19. We're bombing new countries now. Who cares about those other cratered areas?