WASHINGTON/KABUL, 3 July — The Afghan government yesterday demanded that America review its operations to hunt down Al-Qaeda fighters after US forces killed and injured scores of wedding guests in the most deadly “friendly fire” incident since the “war against terror” was launched last October.
President Hamid Karzai called US commanders to his office and “strongly advised them of the grave concern and sorrow over the incident”. In a statement he called on coalition forces to “take all necessary measures to ensure that military activities to capture terrorist groups do not harm innocent Afghan civilians”.
The unprecedented language came after scores of Afghan civilians were killed during an assault by US forces involving a B-52 bomber and an AC-130 gunship. Some reports say up to 120 people were killed, though most estimates put the death toll at around 40.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah deplored as unjustifiable the US bombardment of the wedding party.
“It is understandable that there are possible civilian casualties in military operations, but an incident with such magnitude and such casualties under such conditions is by no means justifiable,” Abdullah told a press conference here. He also called for “strong measures” to avoid further civilian casualties.
Uruzgan officials said the bomb hit “a wedding party in which some people were firing in jubilation and the Americans misunderstood and bombarded the place.”
The United States has rejected such accounts, insisting their planes had come under heavy direct attack, and later saying that they did not hit a village.
Meanwhile, a group of US soldiers came under small arms fire while returning to their base from a hospital visit in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar yesterday and in Jalalabad, four missiles hit the airport wounding three civilians, officials said yesterday. (The Independent)
