World | Afghanistan
Human rights group says 78 Afghans killed in military operation
An Afghan human rights group said on Saturday that at least 78 people were killed in a joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Afghanistan.
- Agencies
- Published: 20:14 August 23, 2008
Kabul: An Afghan human rights group said on Saturday that at least 78 people were killed in a joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Afghanistan.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the violence and said most of the dead were civilians. The US coalition said it believed five civilians were among those killed and that it would investigate the Afghan claims.
Civilian casualties are an emotive issue for Afghans, many of whom feel foreign forces take too little care when launching air strikes. Support for the presence of international troops is waning and anti-US demonstrations broke out on Saturday.
The issue has also led to a rift between the Afghan government and its Western backers, with Karzai saying recently that foreign air strikes have achieved nothing but the deaths of civilians.
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemns the uncoordinated air strike by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province which resulted in the death of at least 70 people including women and children," the president's office said in a statement.
An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad in Herat province and found 78 people had died, 15 houses were destroyed and others were damaged, the group said.
Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner, said one of the group's researchers visited Azizabad on Friday and found that 78 people had been killed and 15 houses were destroyed. Earlier on Saturday, Nadery said 88 people had been killed; he later said he had been mistaken.
Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.
The Afghan Interior Ministry has said that 76 civilians died, including 50 children under the age of 15. Karzai's office said at least 70 civilians died.
The competing claims by the US coalition and the two Afghan ministries were impossible to verify because of the remote and dangerous location of the battle site.
"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said US coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "We had people on the ground."
Originally the coalition said the battle killed 30 militants, but US coalition spokeswoman Rumi Nielson-Green said Saturday that five civilians - two women and three children connected to the militants - were among the dead.
The operation was led by Afghan National Army commandos, with support from the coalition, Nielson-Green said.
It was launched after an intelligence report that a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was inside the compound presiding over a meeting of militants, Defense Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. Siddiq was one of those killed during the raid, Azimi said.
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