KABUL: An American military operation that killed up to 90 civilians was based on false information provided by a rival tribe and did not kill “a single Taleban,” the president’s spokesman said Sunday.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the US military false information that led to the bombardment of the village of Azizabad, the Afghan Interior Ministry has announced.
“There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces,” Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.
The Aug. 22 bombing has strained the US-Afghan relationship, Hamidzada said. An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a preliminary UN report.
The operation, conducted by US Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, hit Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members - the reason the military recovered guns during the operation, Hamidzada said.
The US has said the raid targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq, but villagers of Azizabad say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of US forces; the coalition has declined to comment.
“How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces,” Hamidzada said. He said not “a single Taleban” was killed.
“So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials, total denials.” The US at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed in the operation. A formal military investigation into the incident found it killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians.
But after video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, the US said it would send a one-star general from the United States to investigate the strike.
Villagers had gathered for a memorial ceremony in Azizabad on Aug. 22 to honor a tribal leader named Timor Shah, who was allegedly killed by Tawakil, the rival tribesman, about eight months ago. Villagers said families had traveled to Azizabad from around the region for the ceremony, one of the reasons why so many children were killed.
The top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, has said the US coalition, UN and Afghan government would hold a joint investigation, but Hamidzada said the Afghan government would not take part.
“The Afghan government did not agree to a three-way investigation, because we have already completed two investigations,” he said.
