Up to 100 civilians feared killed in US air raids in Afghanistan

[FarCenter]

The Pentagon yesterday promised to launch a joint investigation with the Afghan government into reports that ­dozens of civilians were killed in US air strikes on Monday night.

Afghan officials estimated that at least 30 and possibly more than 100 died in the attack on Bala Baluk, a Taliban-controlled area in Farah province near the border with Iran. If confirmed, it could be one of the highest civilian death tolls since the US-backed invasion in 2001.

Villagers brought truckloads of bodies, most of them women and children, to the provincial capital.

There were conflicting accounts last night about what had happened. One accounted suggested children, women and the elderly had gone to the village of Gerani to escape fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan National Army (ANA) but the compounds they sheltered in had been bombed.

A girl named Shafiqa wounded in the fighting told Associated Press Television News: "We were at home when the bombing started. Seven members of my family were killed."

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/06/100-feared-dead-afghanistan-raids

[Muttocracy]

1. :-(

[Warpy]

2. What's going on now is a well coordinated squeeze play

with both the US and Pakistan trying to eliminate the Taliban.

Pakistan now has a huge refugee problem on its hands from civilians fleeing the war zone in the northwest around the Swat valley.

This is a good article about what's happening on the Pakistani side of the border: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/1034028.html

[FarCenter]

3. That may be, but this bombing was on the other side of Afghanistan, in the west

[bigtree]

6. there was fighting between tribal members and the Pakistani military

. . . which preceded the airstrikes. The fighters retreated to the populated areas and coalition forces hit the house(s) with the civilians inside. (That's the summary I got this morning. Accounts will likely change.)

[Alamuti Lotus]

7. Great sanitized euphemisms for murder

Secondly, the phrases "good article" and "Miami Herald" have rarely properly collided in a sentence; this no exception--fundamentally lazy knit of government press releases and shallow press platitudes.

[ZombieHorde]

4. Wow, super sad. nt

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. Not sad, infuriating

And recall that the murderers in question will face no punishments whatsoever, maybe even receive a medal at some point. These brave fighters are very literally hunting people for Jesus.

Imagine the opposite -- Taliban air force strafe a suburb of Phoenix, the puppet government under occupation will say a few words, but nothing ever happens. That's just another average day. No big deal, change happens..