Thursday, 7 July 2011

NATO RAID DEATHS - AFGHANS PROTEST


Hundreds of Afghans Protest NATO Air Raid Deaths

by Ahmad Mustafa in Ghazni and Sharafuddin Sharafyar in Herat
GHAZNI, Afghanistan - Hundreds of people gathered in a restive Afghan province to protest the deaths of two young shepherds they said were killed by a foreign air strike on Wednesday, an Afghan official said.
Elsewhere, 32 men from a mine clearance organisation were kidnapped by unknown gunmen in the west of the country, a provincial governor said.
NATO-led forces said an air strike killed one man in Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, after he was observed digging in the road at a spot where a homemade bomb had previously been buried.
Residents of Khogyani took two bodies to the provincial capital, Ghazni city, provincial police chief Zelawar Zahed told Reuters. The residents said both were shepherds, not insurgents, and had been killed in an air strike.
"We have reports that an individual who was planting an IED (improvised explosive device) in a road in Khogyani district was observed and subsequently engaged by an air strike. The individual was killed," said ISAF spokesman Major Tim James. 
Protesters chanted slogans like "death to foreign troops" for around two hours, before dispersing peacefully, Zahed added. Around 250 people demonstrated in Khogyani and then tried to take their protest to Ghazni City but only around 50 were allowed to enter, Khogyani district governor Munshi Habib said.The killing of civilians by foreign troops is a major source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers, and has soured the feelings of many ordinary Afghans towards foreign forces. ISAF said there was 'only one death' reported from the air strike on the road in Khogyani. 
As violence has spread across the country, casualties have risen, and the United Nations said May was the deadliest month for civilians since they began keeping records four years earlier.
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2 comments:

  1. James Gundun7 July 2011 at 14:23

    Statistically U.S. and NATO forces have cut down on their own civilian casualties, even though their presence alone factors into a substantial percentage of the Taliban's collateral. With the emphasis now shifting to a greater degree of counter-terrorism than before, this trend may start to reverse again. How foolish it would be to remain in Afghanistan and air-raid, only to provoke an escalated series of protests.

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  2. TONY @oakroyd8 July 2011 at 03:08

    I haven't read of any intention to cut down on the night raids, James. Obama has bought the Powerpoint presentation claptrap about their 'effectiveness'.So I expect these incidents will continue as will the idiotic NATO/ISAF statements which follow them. It seems 13 women and children died in the latest (known)bloodbath. They are described by NATO as 'family members' in the hope that the public at home will somehow interpret this to mean they were related to 'terrorists'. However such propaganda runs at home, it digs them into a deeper and more desperate hole in Afghanistan.

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