A U.S.-led nighttime airstrike against Taliban rebels in southern Afghanistan
killed up to 80 suspected militants, the coalition said Monday. The local
governor said 16 civilians were killed and 16 wounded.
An Afghan wounded man, who got wounded by the
Coalition air strike in Panjwai district of Kandahar province, is being
carried for treatment at a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Monday,
May 22, 2006. [AP] |
At a hospital, wounded residents of Azizi village described how aircraft
bombed mud-brick homes where Taliban rebels were hiding, having fled there from
a religious school after the airstrikes started. Among the wounded was an
8-month-old infant.
In a statement, the coalition said it had confirmed 20 Taliban killed in the
attack on the village in Kandahar province late Sunday and early Monday, while
there were "an unconfirmed 60 additional Taliban casualties."
U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry told The Associated Press that the
military was "looking into" civilian casualties.
The airstrikes brought the death toll of militants, Afghan forces, coalition
soldiers and civilians to as many as 285 since Wednesday, according to coalition
and Afghan figures. The storm of violence that erupted last week in the south
was among the deadliest combat in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban
regime in 2001.
At Mirwaise Hospital in Kandahar city, a man with blood on his clothes and
turban said insurgents had been hiding in an Islamic religious school, or
madrassa, in the village since the recent fierce fighting.
"Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taliban ran from there and
into people's homes. Then those homes were bombed," said Haji Ikhlaf, 40. "I saw
35 to 40 dead Taliban and around 50 dead or wounded civilians."
Another villager, Zurmina Bibi, cradled her wounded 8-month-old. She said
about 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children.
"There were dead people everywhere," she said, crying.
A doctor, Mohammed Khan, said he had treated 10 people from the village.
Moments later, a pickup vehicle pulled up at the hospital with five wounded men
lying in the back.
"These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban
are hiding in homes," Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid told reporters. "I urge
people not to give shelter to the Taliban."
