According to Reuters, the residents of the two villages recently struck by US airstrikes have prepared a list of the names of those killed. The Deputy Governor of Farah Province has confirmed that the list provided by residents of Geraani includes the names of 90 civilians, while the list provided by residents of nearby Ganj Abad includes the names of 57 others.

Of course, as I mentioned below, the investigation is still ongoing. What is important to remember in this case is that these villagers are the very same people that were, as numerous reports have stated, forced into various buildings by militants and used for cover. Therefore, their figures would certainly not include militants killed in the strikes, especially if the deaths of so many of their fellow villages and family members were the result of militants using them as cover with regards to the ground battle that was underway with Afghan forces prior to the strikes. Unless, that is, the residents of both villages are part of a Taliban propaganda initiative and are therefore willing to lie about the extent of civilian losses – something that US military officials stated was a possibility until today.

The US response to the totals provided by the villagers is what you might expect…

“While the United States military is finally willing to concede that it killed at least some people in the massive Farah air strike, they scoffed at a list of the 147 names of civilians local officials say were killed in the attacks, which destroyed multiple homes across two villages.

Officially, the military is now saying the toll is being “extremely over-exaggated” by the Afghan government. The strike, which is now being called by far the deadliest single incident since the 2001 US invasion, has outraged the civilian population and led President Hamid Karzai to demand that the US put an end to all air strikes in the troubled nation.

The concession that they had killed 50 people, while insisting most of them were insurgents, flew in the face of reports from numerous sources and comments from a myriad of Afghan officials. Still, it was a step up from previous claim that the Taliban had rounded up all the people ahead of time, killed them with hand grenades, packed the bodies into houses, then fooled the US into leveling the houses. Yesterday, they admitted that claim was “thinly sourced.”

…more warm jets.

May 9, 2009 8 Comments

As a follow up to an entry I posted the other day, this AP report is of considerable significance…

“An opposition group says its leaders, including a former president, have been meeting with the Taliban and other anti-government groups in hopes of negotiating an end to rising violence in Afghanistan.

The contacts have taken place between leaders of the opposition National Front and “high level” militant leaders during the last few months, party spokesman Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki said in an interview Sunday.

He said among those at the meetings were former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, now a member of parliament, and Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who is President Hamid Karzai’s security adviser and a powerful northern strongman.

Rabbani said Afghanistan’s six-year war must be solved through talks, echoing a view held by many in the country.

“There’s no doubt that some inside the Taliban are not willing to negotiate, but there are some Taliban who are interested in solving problems through talks,” Rabbani, Afghanistan’s president from 1992-96, told The Associated Press in an interview.

“We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations,” he said.”

If the West won’t do it, perhaps the Afghans will, and in doing so play a very crucial role in the development of their own country.

April 17, 2008 8 Comments