Children!!
CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!
"NATO used Afghan children to detect land mines: ex..."
"Germany-Afghanistan-ISAF/WRD ISAF used Afghan children to detect land-mines: ex-German soldier
Berlin, Jan 10, IRNA
Soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have repeatedly used Afghan children to detect land-mines in war-ravaged country, said a former German ISAF officer in Berlin on Thursday.
Unveiling his new book titled 'Final Station', Achim Wohlgetan pointed out that children were misused by ISAF forces to find land- mines in the Kabul region in 2002.
ISAF soldiers threw apples on an area and then waited to see what would happen. If the children were to run to pick up the apples, and there was no explosion, the area was declared safe, according to Wohlgetan.
A German Defense Ministry spokesperson voiced serious questions over some of the claims which Wohlgetan made in his book.
He alleged that German soldiers had operated outside the mandated area of ISAF in Afghanistan in 2002.
Speaking at a routine government press briefing in Berlin on Wednesday, Christian Dienst expressed strong doubts over claims made by Wohlgetan who said that several troops had knowingly violated the ISAF zone.
The 41-year-old ex-German soldier quit military service in 2006 as a lower ranking officer.
According to Dienst, Wohlgetan lacked an overview of all aspects of the security structure.
Some 3,500 German troops are deployed in mainly northern Afghanistan.
Germany has faced intense pressure in recent months from its Nato allies, notably the US, Britain and Canada, to widen its military presence into southern Afghanistan where NATO troops are battling a revitalized Taliban insurgency.
A spate of kidnappings of German nationals in Afghanistan has also negatively influenced public opinion about the western military campaign in the war-ravaged country.
According to the latest opinion polls, most Germans oppose the western war in Afghanistan.
News sent: 09:46 Friday January 11, 2008"
Update:
"Taliban Attack Kills 9 Police in Afghanistan"
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- A pair of militant attacks killed nine police officers in southern Afghanistan Sunday and the Netherlands announced that two of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in the south.
Taliban militants killed eight officers in an attack on a police checkpoint in Kandahar province, said Sadullah Khan, a police officer in neighboring Neven district. A suicide bomber killed another policeman and wounded eight other people when he blew himself up in a housing compound in the town of Lashkar Gah in neighboring Helmand province, officials said.
Guards challenged the bomber when he tried to enter the house of a regional police commander and the man detonated himself, killing the policemen and wounding two children, four civilians and two other police officers, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.
The Netherlands' Defense Ministry said two Dutch soldiers -- a 20-year-old private and a 22-year-old corporal -- were killed and in southern Afghanistan Saturday.
The Dutch soldiers died during a firefight with "opposing militant forces," in Uruzgan province, the Ministry said. Another soldier wounded suffered wounds to both legs in a separate incident and was expected to survive, the ministry said."
Update:
"Dutch troops kill 4 in friendly fire" by Alisa Tang/Associated Press | January 13, 2008
BAGRAM, Afghanistan --Dutch troops in Afghanistan killed two of their own men during a nighttime battle, and separately two allied Afghan soldiers they mistook for enemies, the Defense Ministry said Sunday.
"Darkness, the weather conditions and the confused situation" played a role in the mistake Saturday in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, Gen. Dick Berlijn, the top Dutch military commander, said in a statement.
Opposing fighters were in between Dutch units during the fighting several miles northwest of Camp Hadrian, near Deh Rawod. The two Afghan soldiers, who were not "recognizably in uniform," also were killed Saturday after they approached a wounded Dutch soldier six miles to the south, Berlijn said.
Military police were investigating both incidents. In the most famous friendly fire case of the Afghan conflict, Pat Tillman, a former U.S. football player who became an Army ranger, was killed in April 2004 by fellow troops near the Pakistani border.
In August, a U.S. warplane mistakenly dropped a 500-pound bomb on British troops after they called for air support in Afghanistan, killing three soldiers and seriously wounding two others.
And in 2002, four Canadian soldiers were killed when an American F-16 pilot on a night patrol dropped a 500-pound bomb on Canadian troops conducting a live-fire training exercise near the southern city of Kandahar. The pilot apparently mistook the Canadians for enemy forces and thought he was acting in self-defense, U.S. officials have said.
The soldiers who were killed were part of an operation in which several hundred Dutch and Afghan soldiers are attempting to gauge prospects for refugees currently sheltering in the Deh Rawod bazaar to return home, Berlijn said.
Meanwhile, a newspaper quoted British Defense Secretary Des Browne as saying the country could be engaged in Afghanistan for decades.
Browne told People newspaper: "There is only so much our forces can achieve. The job can only be completed by the international community working with the Afghan government and its army. It is a commitment which could last decades, although it will reduce over time."
Taliban militants killed eight officers in an attack Sunday on a police checkpoint in Kandahar province, said Sadullah Khan, a police officer in neighboring Neven district. A suicide bomber killed another policeman and wounded eight other people when he blew himself up in a housing compound in the town of Lashkar Gah in neighboring Helmand province, officials said."
