US denies Afghan civilian deaths

2009-01-08 20:08

Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said on Thursday that reports suggested 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a US raid in eastern Afghanistan this week.

The US military, however, reiterated that only 32 insurgents were killed in the operation on Tuesday in Laghman province, east of the capital Kabul.

The provincial government said it had sent a team to the area to investigate.

"Seventeen civilians, women and children among them, were killed in an attack launched by coalition forces on a Taliban hideout in the Alishing district of Laghman province, reports suggest," Karzai's office said.

An official told AFP separately that the statement referred to intelligence reports received by the government.

Karzai condemned the killings and also the "using of civilians as human shields by the terrorists", his office said in a statement.

Tension

Civilian casualties in operations by international troops have been a source of tension between foreign forces and Karzai, who says such incidents threaten support for the fight against extremists.

"These incidents risk undermining the war on terror and our successes, and must soon come to an end," the president's statement said.

The US military, which conducts counter-terrorism operations around Afghanistan, said it stood by its operational reports that all of the 32 people killed were militants.

"If new information becomes available, we will certainly consider it but our information, that has been verified, indicates that all 32 were in fact militants," spokesman Colonel Jerry O'Hara told AFP.

Provincial officials could not confirm if any civilians had died.

"The governor sent a delegation to the area to investigate," said provincial government spokesman Sayed Ahmad Safi.

"No one can totally rule out the possibility of civilian casualties since Taliban do use civilians as shields," he said.

Insurgents are also suspected of issuing false accounts of civilian deaths to try to turn people against the government and its international allies.

A provincial council member had told AFP Wednesday that 22 civilians were among the dead.

Target

The US-led coalition said on Wednesday that the target of the Laghman operation was a Taliban cell that had carried out several bombings against civilians and soldiers in 2008.

"Coalition forces killed 32 armed insurgents including one female, detained one suspected militant, and destroyed two large caches of weapons, explosives and roadside bomb materials," it said.

O'Hara said on Thursday the woman "had numerous opportunities to surrender and failed to do so."

"You cannot act as a sentry or a spotter during an operation and then attempt to claim civilian status at the conclusion of the operation," he said.

The troops did not call in air power in a village, to avoid harming civilians, using only gunfire, O'Hara said. Strikes were targeted outside the village where five people were killed, O'Hara said.

There were also claims from locals on Wednesday that operations by the separate Nato-led force in the southern province of Helmand had killed 19 civilians.

Afghan officials said they could not confirm figures as the operation was in a district that was under Taliban control and therefore outside of the government's authority.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force said on Thursday it had reviewed footage from the operation and could say with "absolute certainty" that no civilians had been harmed.

- AFP