KABUL, 25 June 2007 — The NATO-led forces in Afghanistan admitted yesterday to killing more civilians, this time in Pakistan, a day after harsh criticism from President Hamid Karzai about military operations. A weapon fired by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) hit a building in Pakistan as warplanes were chasing down insurgents preparing to attack a base across the Afghan border Saturday, a spokesman said.
Residents said a child, a woman and seven men were killed. Pakistan military spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said his government had protested and demanded an explanation. He said a rocket had struck the building. “We have reports that one of our weapons hit a building which may have had a number of civilians in it and that building may have been a home or way-station or some hotel facility,” ISAF spokesman Maj. John Thomas told AFP. “We regret the loss of innocent life,” he said.
ISAF said earlier up to 60 militants were killed in the operation, which spanned the border in Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktika province and Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area. In Kabul on Saturday, Karzai accused ISAF and the separate US-led coalition of causing civilian casualties in the battle against insurgents through “indiscriminate and careless” operations.
There was an “extreme use of force” and action was not being coordinated with Afghan forces despite repeated complaints over several years, the president said. A NATO spokesman said the president’s anger was understandable. “But let’s make clear that no ISAF soldier intends to kill civilians,” Nicholas Lunt said in Kabul. “That’s not the case with Taleban. They deliberately kill civilians.”
A district police chief told media yesterday that Taleban insurgents had kidnapped his 18-year-old son and beheaded him. Ghulam Wali, head of police in Helmand province’s Sangin district, said he had pleaded in vain with the men to free his child, saying: “He’s an innocent young boy and your enmity is with me not to him.”
The insurgents kill by far the most civilians in the fighting in Afghanistan, often in suicide and roadside bombings aimed at the foreign and Afghan security forces.
There was, meanwhile, more fighting across the country with nearly 20 militants, four Afghan soldiers and three foreign troopers killed in the past day. Two Estonian nationals with the 37-nation ISAF died in a rocket attack in Helmand, their country announced.
Taleban have also seized 18 Afghan mine clearing experts and threatened to kill them if investigations suggest they are working for US-led forces in the country, officials and the insurgents said yesterday. The group was seized along with four specialist mine-sniffing dogs, which can take years to train, on Saturday in the Andar district of Ghazni province, part of the eastern and southern “badlands” where the Taleban are at their strongest.
“Our investigation is on going and after the investigation we will decide what to do,” Taleban commander Mullah Safiullah told Reuters by satellite phone. Shohab Hakimi, head of the Mine Detection Dog Center said nine of his staff and nine others from the Mine Clearance Planning Agency were seized at gunpoint.
