KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 23 May 2006 — US-led coalition warplanes killed up to 80 suspected Taleban militants in a nighttime airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said yesterday. The local governor and a doctor said 17 civilians also died.
A coalition statement said it had confirmed 20 Taleban killed in the attack on the village of Azizi in Kandahar province late Sunday and early yesterday, while there were “an unconfirmed 60 additional Taleban casualties.”
US commander Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry told The Associated Press that the military was “looking into” whether some civilians had also died.
According to figures from coalition and Afghan officials, the new deaths brought the toll of militants, Afghan forces and coalition soldiers and civilians killed to up to 285 since Wednesday, when a storm of violence broke out in the south — among the deadliest combat in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taleban regime in 2001.
Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said besides the 16 civilians killed in the airstrike, another 16 had been wounded and brought to hospitals in Kandahar city, a former Taleban stronghold. A doctor later said that one of the injured civilians had died.
“These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taleban are hiding in homes,” Khalid told reporters. “I urge people not to give shelter to the Taleban.”
US military spokesman Col. Tom Collins said, “It’s common that the enemy fights in close to civilians as a means to protect its own forces. “We targeted a Taleban compound and we’re certain we hit the right target,” he said.
Another spokesperson, Lt. Tamara Lawrence, said the estimate of 80 militants killed was based on “an educated assessment of the area,” but only 20 had been fully confirmed.
She said A-10 Thunderbolt warplanes were used in the night attack — although one villager claimed he saw helicopters. The A-10 Thunderbolt is aircraft designed for close air support of ground forces, and Lawrence confirmed that there were coalition troops on the ground near Azizi during the attack.
At Kandahar city’s Mirwaise Hospital, many of the wounded sought treatment. One man, with blood smeared over his clothes and turban, said insurgents had been hiding in a madrassa in the village after fierce fighting in recent days.
“Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taleban ran from there and into people’s homes. Then those homes were bombed,” said Haji Ikhlaf, 40. “I saw 35 to 40 dead Taleban and around 50 dead or wounded civilians.”
