U.S. denies its airstrike killed civilians
Afghans say that 14 relatives died when homewas destroyed.
KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN — Fourteen members of a family, including three small children, were killed in northern Afghanistanwhen a U.S. airstrike destroyed their home, several Afghan officials confirmed Friday.
In what has become a familiar litany, particularly in Taliban-dominated Kunduz province, Afghan and U.S. officials had initially denied that any civilians had been killed in the strike Thursday, claiming the victims were Taliban fighters.
Then 11 bodies belonging to women and children appeared at the hospital in Kunduz City, about 4 miles fromthe site of the attack in Chardara district. The Taliban do not have women fighters and the children were very young.
Soon after the attack, district officials described the incident as an airstrike that went wrong, in which only civilians were killed. “Therewere12 killedandone wounded by American jets in Chardara district, and all casualties are civilians,” said AbdulKarim, the local police chief. Two other children were later counted as dead because they were known to have been in the house, although their remains could not be found in the rubble, residents and relatives said.
A local resident, Rahimullah, 26, drove the tractor used to excavate thebombed house and pull out the bodies. “I don’t know why they attack civilians,” he said. “I lost my nephews, Farid and Zainullah.” (Rahimullah uses only one name, which is common in Afghanistan).
Three other children escaped from the house when the attack began, and one man, the father of thewounded children, was not home at the time of the attack.
On Friday, the United Nations office in Kabul called the reports “credible” and said it was investigating.
Farther from the scene, however, military officials dismissed the possibility of civilian fatalities.
The executive officer of an Afghan army unit on the front line in Chardara did not mince words. “It is propaganda by the enemy,” the officer, Maj. Saifuddin Azizi of the 10th commando battalion, said. “We deny therewere any civilian casualties. Foreign troops are our friends and we don’t target civilians. When the foreign troops decide to attack somewhere, first of all they check everything and then they launch the operation.”
If there were any civilian casualties, Azizi said, theTalibanmust have attacked the victims with rockets.
In Kabul, Lt. Col. Martin L. O’Donnell, a U.S. military spokesman, was also unequivocal. “U.S. forcesdid conduct strikes in support of Afghan-led ground operations in Chardara district, Kunduz province,” O’Donnell said in an email. “An on-the-ground assessment of those strikes reveals no indications they caused civilian casualties.”
By lateThursday, however, provincial authorities inKunduz had begun to change their accounts, as angry relatives besieged their offices. Villagers shared cellphone photographs of the bomb site and the victims, andwitnesses spoke out. “There wasn’t a single armed person in those homes,” said Hajji Sherin Agha, a local elder.
Nimatullah Timory, the spokesman for the Kunduz governor, retracted earlier official denials. “During an explosion, the type ofwhich is not clear, some Afghan civilians were killed and wounded,” he said. “The governor ordered Afghan forces to help people and investigate the incident.”