Reply #3: As I read this account I find I have questions [View All]

1. The A-10 flys low. Real low. It's designed as a close ground support combat aircraft. Unlike the most of the military jets in the US arsenal, the pilots can see who they're shooting at. Question: How early did they go in,i.e., were they using night vision equipment? If so, they they went in knowing that they could never, even remotely, identify the "target".

2. "US A-10 attack jets, firing rockets and machine-guns". The A-10 does not have a "machine-gun". It is equipped with a GAU-8/A 30mm Gatling gun which fires depleted Uranium shells specifically designed to destroy heavy military equipment such as tanks. This is incorrect: "uncle of the two girls...was cut down beside them." A person hit by one of these shells would be "splattered", not "cut down".

3. "The rockets made 30 to 40 small craters around where the children had died." Even "small" rockets, 6.99mm Hydra-70s, pack a huge punch, and have a 25-50m kill radius. It sounds more like the A-10s hosed the area with 30mm cannon fire instead of firing rockets; I'd have expected more damage, otherwise.

4. If the mission was to "hit" a single lone male villager, why did the US military send in jets and not a squad of infantry? Even with excellent ground visiblity during a sunlit morning attack A-10 jet pilots would not be able to positively identify the "target", nor would they have the weaponry to single out the culprit even if they had made a positive ID. Using an GAU-8/A 30mm in a village is like swatting flies with a shotgun.

I can only surmise that this was a punitive mission meant to "send a message" to the peoples of the area, and as usual the innocent paid the price.



--on edit--
ah khant spehl