Major civilian casualties in NATO air raid over Afghanistan
The Afghan government says a NATO airstrike has killed at least 27 civilians in southern Afghanistan.
Three vehicles travelling towards Kandahar Province were heavily bombed in the attack. NATO said it had specific intelligence that the vehicles were carrying insurgents on their way to attack allied troops.
The Council of Ministers released a statement Monday condemning the incident as "unjustifiable," and was concerned about "the repeated killing of civilians by NATO."
In a statement, NATO said its forces were targeting insurgents in Uruzgan province, and that an air strike accidentally killed and wounded civilians. It did not say how many. Initially a death toll of 33 was reported, however this was later revised by the Afghan Interior Ministry to 27.
The NATO statement said that after the strike, which occurred during daylight hours, NATO forces found women and children and transported them to medical facilities.
The U.S. commander of the international force, Stanley McChrystal, expressed regret for the incident, saying killing or injuring civilians undermines the Afghan people's trust in NATO's mission. "We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives. I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will re-double our efforts to regain that trust," he said.
McChrystal said NATO would participate in a joint investigation by government agencies.
In the past fortnight, more than fifty civilians are believed to have been died in U.S. and NATO military operations in Afghanistan, according to a CNN report.
The coalition is also investigating reports that several Afghan policemen were accidentally killed in an airstrike in eastern Afghanistan on February 18.
So far, at least 16 civilians, about 120 insurgents and 13 NATO troops, including one who died in a roadside bombing Sunday, have been killed in the week-long offensive in Uruzgan.
NATO says the operation in the Helmand town of Marjah is progressing slowly due to "ongoing resistance" from insurgents.
The force says there has been an increase in the number of people displaced by the fighting in the area, and that 542 families registered with authorities Sunday.
Also Sunday, the head of the U.S. Central Command, responsible for all military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the ongoing offensive in southern Afghanistan is just the start of a long campaign against the Taliban.
General David Petraeus did not predict how long the operation in Marjah would last, but said allied troops will focus on taking away Taliban safe havens over the next 12 to 18 months.
In The Hague Sunday, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he expects nearly 2,000 Dutch troops to leave Afghanistan in August, as scheduled.
Mr. Balkenende made the comment a day after his government collapsed, when a main coalition partner said it could not support extending the Afghan mission.
The controversy over the Dutch deployment follows U.S. requests for NATO allies to commit more troops and resources to the Afghan war effort.
Also Sunday, Fox News reported that police in northwestern Pakistan recently arrested one of the top 10 most wanted Afghan Taliban leaders, Mulvi Kabir. He was the governor of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province before the Taliban was ousted in 2001.
The cable TV channel said information leading to Kabir's capture was obtained from Afghanistan's top Taliban military commander Mullah Baradar, whose arrest in the Pakistani city of Karachi was announced last week.
An air raid over Afghanistan has mistaken civilians for insurgents. As a result twenty seven Afghan civilians have been killed, and scores more wounded. The U.S. commander of the international force, Stanley McChrystal, has expressed regret over the incident.
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