(Updated; originally posted May 1, 2007)
"U.S. Says Raids Killed Taliban; Afghans Say Civilians Died" by ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 30 — United States Special Forces said they killed more than 130 Taliban in two recent days of heavy fighting in a valley in western Afghanistan. The American military said that the fighting against the Taliban occurred Friday and Sunday in the Zerkoh Valley, near the Iranian border about 30 miles south of the city of Herat, and that the Special Forces called in airstrikes on at least two occasions.
Forty-nine Taliban fighters, including two leaders of the group, were killed in the first bombardment on Friday, and 87 militants were killed in bombing during a second battle on Sunday that raged for 14 hours.
The province of Herat, where the fighting occurred, is usually quiet, but the Zerkoh Valley is populated by ethnic Pashtuns and shares a border with provinces where there are many insurgents.
Hundreds of angry villagers protested in nearby Shindand on Monday, saying dozens of civilians had been killed when the Americans called in airstrikes.
The protesters sacked and burned government buildings... a number of protesters were hurt as the police and the army moved in to subdue the crowd.
Yup, our "liberators" will not only murder you with fire bombs delivered by air mail, but we will BEAT George W. Bush's liberation into you!
Local residents said that civilians were killed in the bombardment and that some drowned in the river as they fled, according to a local member of Parliament, Maulavi Gul Ahmad. News agencies reported that demonstrators said women and children were among the dead.
Oh, Good Lord!! Oh, Fatima!
The horror! The HORROR!!!
Mr. Ahmad condemned the bombing and said that the fighting angered local residents because the Americans raided their houses at night.
“They should not do that,” he said in a telephone interview. “The number that they claim — that 130 Taliban were killed — is totally wrong. There are no Taliban there.”
Raiding houses touches a nerve in Afghanistan, especially in conservative tribal areas, because the local custom dictates that men who are not family members cannot enter the parts of homes where the women stay.
Whose nerves wouldn't the house-raiding touch? AmeriKans?
And as for the custom, I LIKE IT!!!!
Such raids were upsetting local sensibilities so much several years ago that the American forces made an agreement with the Afghan government that they would not raid houses without the presence of Afghan elders or the police. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission says that the agreement is still in effect, but that American troops do not always adhere to it.
Yup, winning hearts and minds all right!
Or OBLITERATING THEM, more likely!
O' may God forgive this nation and us!
