50 Taliban, 16 civilians killed in Afghanistan air raid
More than 50 Taliban rebels and at least 16 civilians were killed during an overnight coalition bombing raid on a village in southern Afghanistan, officials and witnesses have said.
The US-led coalition said it had targeted active insurgents in the air raid in Kandahar province and a provincial governor said some of the militants had hidden in local people's houses.
Wounded men, women and children who streamed into a nearby hospital using whatever vehicles withstood the bombing said dozens of civilians died and scores more were wounded Monday.
The air strike came amid some of the worst violence since the 2001 fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Around 300 people have been killed in the past week, more than twice the number reported killed in Iraq.
"I can confirm there was a coalition air strike against a known Taliban stronghold near the village of Azizi in the Panjwayi district and we believe more than 50 Taliban have been killed in the operation," coalition spokesman Major Scott Lundy told AFP.
"These individuals were active members of the Taliban network and have conducted attacks against coalition and Afghan forces as well as civilians," a coalition statement said.
The coalition was looking into reports of civilian casualties, Lundy added.
Up to 60 Taliban and 16 civilians were killed and 15 civilians were wounded, provincial governor Asadullah Khalid told reporters at the main hospital in Kandahar city, 35 kilometres (20 miles) east of the bombed area.
"There were reports that the Taliban were in this village but when the US planes started bombardment the Taliban used the people's houses as a front -- that's why there were civilian casualties," Khalid said.
But a young man sitting next to his wounded brother said, "Sixteen people were either killed or wounded only in my family."
An AFP correspondent saw several severely wounded people being brought into the city's main hospital in cars, taxis and minibuses. They said more were on their way and others were still in the village, along with many dead.
An elderly man, Attah Mohammad, told AFP at the hospital that 24 members of his family, including some children, were killed in the bombing and scores more people were wounded.
"They started to bomb our village at midnight and continued up to this morning," he told an AFP reporter at the hospital.
The area was sealed off by foreign and Afghan troops, said Mohammad, who had brought some of his wounded relatives including women and children to the hospital.
A doctor said security forces had not allowed ambulances into the area to fetch the wounded.
An 18-year-old with wounds to his face and chest said there had been Taliban in the village but they disappeared when the bombs started to fall.
"One hit my house. I was wounded and my two brothers were killed," said the teenager named Azizullah, adding he had seen scores of dead and wounded on his way to the hospital.
A 45-year-old man named Nasratullah said he had been having dinner with his in-laws. "Suddenly the bombardment started -- there was big fire in our place. I managed to escape but I don't know what happened to my in-laws," he said.
There have been several major battles with insurgents during the past week, including a clash in Panjwayi last Wednesday and Thursday which Khalid said left 100 Taliban dead. Insurgents also carried out three suicide bombings.
Separately Afghan and coalition forces said Monday they had arrested a mid-level Taliban leader, who was a rebel commander for Helmand province, during an operation on Friday in neighbouring Uruzgan province.
Mullah Mohibullah was responsible for a Taliban ambush on Friday that killed one US soldier and wounded several others, it said.
Around 250 Taliban fighters have been killed since Wednesday, according to Afghan authorities and the coalition. Nearly 50 other Afghans have been killed, most of them police and soldiers, as well as four foreign soldiers.
Scores of civilians have been killed by coalition bombing raids in Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban. In one of the worst incidents 48 wedding guests were killed in Uruzgan province in 2002.
AFP
