51 civilians killed in Afghan fighting

Source: AP

KABUL, Afghanistan - Regional officials said Wednesday that 51 villagers, some of them women and children, were killed in recent fighting in western Afghanistan. The U.S.-led coalition said it had no reports of civilian deaths.

The governor of southern Kandahar province also reported some civilians may have been killed during a clash there Tuesday night that left 13 dead, including two women.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeated his demands that more be done to prevent civilian casualties during military operations, saying he has been meeting regularly with officials of coalition and NATO forces trying to solve the problem.

"The intention is very good in these operations to fight terrorism. Sometimes mistakes have been made as well, but five years on, it is very difficult for us to continue to accept civilian casualties," Karzai told reporters.

"We can no longer accept civilian casualties the way they occur," he added. "It is not understandable anymore."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070502/ap_on_re_as/afghan_civilian_deaths

knows nothing?
And not for the first time...

a lot of 2nd hand info being tossed about from a country that makes the Flintstones look well connected.

epitome of a puppet leader.

Source: Agence France-Presse

No probe of reported civilian deaths in Afghanistan: US military

38 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military has opened no formal
investigation into official reports of dozens of civilian deaths in
fighting in western Afghanistan that involved US special forces,
a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

Afghan and UN investigators counted about 50 civilian dead,
including women and children, in the clashes last Friday and
on Sunday in the Shindand district of Afghanistan's Herat
province.

But Colonel Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman, said the US
military on the ground had reported no civilian casualties
up their chain of command and so no investigation has been
launched.

"There is no US investigation that I know of going on," Keck
said.

"It is my understanding that current reporting through
operational channels do not indicate that there were civilian
casualties. We continue to work it through operational
channels," he said.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070502/pl_afp/afghanistanusunrest_070502181512

Pakistan news source spin;

....
KABUL, May 1: A Nato-led offensive in a restive southern Afghanistan district killed up to 56 militants, including some Pakistani nationals, on its first day, an Afghan commander said on Tuesday.

“We've killed up to 56 Taliban, including lots of Pakistanis,” General Moheydin Ghori from the Afghan army told AFP by telephone from the area.

The bodies of the dead had been left at the site in Helmand province's Sangin Valley, he said, and a handful of Pakistani fighters had also been arrested.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) had earlier said the operation, launched on Monday, had

killed “a significant number of insurgents.” Some 2,000 Nato-led and Afghan troops are involved in the new sweep, called Operation Silicon. “We're advancing through Sangin very successfully and the Taliban have been defeated,” Ghori said.

....
<snip>

http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/02/top1.htm

If,
the bodies are left unburied by Afghan tribesman, that means those left to dry rot were foreign "dogs"or as the local Afghan tribes say it ; some are more muslim then others .

... in the news the other day, and wondered how many of those were actually civilians. God only knows how many civilians we've killed.

:kick:

Source: Aljazeera

Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has said he is enraged at the killing of scores of civilians by Western forces hunting Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Karzai summoned the US ambassador and Nato's senior commander to his presidential palace in Kabul on Wednesday to tell them that the death of civilians is "not acceptable anymore".

He said: "We can no longer accept civilian casualties the way they occur. It's becoming heavy for us."

Karzai's complaints followed a spate of high-profile incidents in which local people accused US and other Western troops of killing large numbers of Afghan civilians.


Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/94E90030-0C80-4C59-8A7E-F9728F5984DA.htm

...If not, then he is a dead man:yoiks:

This is just a pathetic attempt for him to save himself from the inevitable.

Massoud was someone who might have been seen as independent enough to be able to bring the country together, whereas Karzai is seen as a Bush puppet.

It is sad, that these noble, ancient, cradles of civilization continue to be descimated by war, politics, and ignorance.

It will only further contribute to global de-evolution and the regression of civilization.

sjd

And maybe spread the number out a bit, not so many at one setting.
You're putting my puppetcy in jeopardy.


"He said: "We can no longer accept civilian casualties the way they occur. It's becoming heavy for us."

Karzai's complaints followed a spate of high-profile incidents in which local people accused US and other Western troops of killing large numbers of Afghan civilians."

* one morning just after he--Karzai--arrived at his office.

"Hi, President Karzai. This is just to let you know that last night at midnight all NATO forces were withdrawn to 50 miles outside of Kabul; we'll consider sending them back into Kabul, but we need to get the request in writing. We'll consider any request at the next Cabinet meeting.

"I guess that the Taliban have gotten the word by now, we let that leak during the night, not that they probably didn't have guys watching the troops. We didn't want to disturb you at home, I hope it's not a problem. Have a nice day."

He'd don a burqa so fast it isn't funny--both to cover the wet spot from the crap and piss that came squirting out of him, as well as to indicate the proper submission and acknowledge his Allah-ordained role to the first Talib.

Source: Reuters

More civilians killed in US-led raid -Afghan official
04 May 2007 07:01:58 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Saeed Ali Achakzai

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, May 4 (Reuters) - At least 13 civilians were
killed in a bombing raid by U.S.-led forces hunting the Taliban, an Afghan
official said on Friday, bringing to 70 the number of such deaths reported
this week.

-snip-

The civilians were killed in bombing on Tuesday night in the Maroof district
of southern Kandahar province, near the border with Pakistan, said Janan
Gulzai a provincial assembly member.

"I saw all the victims are civilians," Gulzai who was a member of a
government team investigating the incident, told Reuters.

-snip-

The civilians were travelling in three cars along the same stretch of road as
coalition troops near the town of Spin Boldak when the troops came under
Taliban fire, said Ghulam Farooq, a resident of the area.

The 13 civilians were killed when coalition warplanes were summoned to bomb
the area while the Taliban escaped, he said.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL201515.htm