searching *afghans* in SOTT :
Tue, 24 Jul 2007 05:33 EDT
Afghan
and US-led troops killed more than 60 Taliban rebels in two days of fierce
fighting, while six NATO soldiers died in separate clashes, officials said
Monday. |
Afghan
villagers in the eastern province of Kunar say 35 civilians have been killed
in separate air attacks by international forces.
It
can no longer be believed that it is a rare occurrence or one that is caused
by mistake. It therefore clear that it is the policy to kill indiscriminately.
2007 july 7
Ferocious
attacks on civilians, be these by ill-trained troops or brave warriors of
the skies who bomb and rocket houses occupied by women and children, are
serving to hasten the spread of distrust and loathing. The opposition, whether
'Taliban', double-dealing warlords, drug thugs, or ordinary tribesmen who
hate all foreigners, is by its nature disorganized and incapable of mounting
major attacks. But it doesn't need to. The war in Afghanistan is being lost
because the foreign occupiers are killing Afghan civilians.
june 29
The
governor of eastern Nangarhar province told reporters meanwhile that authorities
were holding two men who had confessed to being would-be suicide bombers
who had been trained in Pakistan.
"They have confessed that I was their target," governor Gul Agha Shirzay said.
Tehran
(IRAN) has said it wanted one million Afghans repatriated by next March.
The 70 000 who have been sent back started returning from April 21.
The
head of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, said all sides involved
in the conflict were "legally obliged to distinguish at all times between
legitimate military objectives and the civilian population and civilian objects."
They
must weigh up the possible incidental loss of civilian life and damage against
the expected military outcome of an attack, Stocker said ....
Particularly
disheartening is the fact that not far away, the medical unit at Kandahar
airfield base has stacks of soon-to-expire pediatric kits. A staffer who
didn't want to be identified admits it's just too unsafe now for their mobile
medical team to venture into these camps and administer healthcare to the
sick and dying. Even the NGOs have pulled out.
But the local residents said that civilians were killed in the bombardment and that some drowned in the river as they fled...
uk-news april 30
"Those folks were innocent . . . We were unable to find evidence that those were fighters."
The
failure of Nato forces to deliver security and development and rising civilian
casualties inflicted by Western forces in clashes with the Taliban have led
to a loss of support in Kandahar. "How can we forgive the Americans?" asked Mr Karigar, who like most
people here does not distinguish among the different elements in Nato. "I will fight them any way I can."
John
Sifton, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, which is based in New
York, also expressed concern about the level of force. "That is heavy firepower
to respond to two men, even if they have Kalashnikovs," he said in a telephone
interview. "If that version of events bears up, it would strongly suggest
that the attack was disproportionate." Mr. Sifton said insurgents also regularly
violated the rules of war by using force near civilian areas.
m-e-m march 5
us-news ...march
5
More than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately
along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan's busiest
highways - a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans
on foot and bicycles.
The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle where three Afghans had been shot to death inside.
An American soldier then took Gul's camera and deleted the photos.
march4 2007
To
understand the failure -- and fraud -- of reconstruction in Afghanistan,
you have to take a look at the peculiar system of U.S. aid for international
development. During the past five years, the United States and many other
donor nations pledged billions of dollars to Afghanistan, yet Afghans keep
asking: "Where did the money go?" American taxpayers should be asking the
same question.
KABUL,
Afghanistan - NATO's top commander in Afghanistan warned on Sunday that a
majority of Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban
militants if their lives show no visible improvements in the next six months.
(OCTOBER 2006)
Comment:
What a coincidence! The US comes and "liberates" Afghanistan and within a
few years the previously almost non-existent opium production skyrockets
while the previously plentiful harvest of staple foods plummets.
.......in the area, saying that if they don't want to die, they had better leave Pashmul. Coalition
forces have been trying to take control of the area, which is about 25 kilometres
west of Kandahar. It is the site where several Canadians have been killed
and wounded.
The
pictures were taken by an Afghan passer-by on 29 May in Khair Kane, a district
of north Kabul. The 20 photographs appear to show a group of unarmed Afghan
civilians being killed by gunfire from an American Humvee.
The
Canadian who was killed, identified as Mike Frastacky, was found in the house
of an Afghan national in northern Baghlan province on Monday, said Mohammad
Halam Rask, the province's governor.
Frastacky,
who suffered three bullet wounds to the chest, was reportedly an independent
aid worker helping to build a school in the area
july 26 2006 m-e-m
More than 600 people, mainly militants, have been killed since May. But
Karzai, who has previously scorned large-scale anti-militant campaigns, rejected
the continued spilling of Afghan blood in military operations. "It is not
acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying." Even "if
they are Taliban, they are sons of this land."
Between 3,000 and 4,000 foreign civilians are believed to be working in Afghanistan alongside 23,000
American troops and 9,000 members of a NATO-led multinational force, mostly from western countries.
may 31 a-t-w
"These
traitors killed at least 10 people. Death to them," a protestor named Ahmadullah
said told an AFP reporter, referring to the American troops.
Another
said: "These cowards opened fire into the crowd and killed them like sheep.
First they drove into the people's cars, destroyed them and then fired onto
the people who were only throwing stones at them.
"They are not brave soldiers. They are just backstreet, bad-driving thugs. They think
Afghanistan is a playground where they can practise shooting," he said, without giving his name.
The
U.S. military has said it takes "extraordinary measures" to protect Afghan
civilians, but that Taliban rebels were firing on coalition forces from inside
the villagers' homes, and that troops had the right to return fire in defence.
Afghans' uranium levels spark alert
Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may have been used in Afghanistan.
The scientist is Dr Asaf Durakovic, of the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), based in Canada.
Dr
Durakovic, a former US army adviser who is now a professor of medicine, said
in 2000 he had found "significant" DU levels in two-thirds of the 17 Gulf
veterans he had tested.
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