Afghanistan

[JR]

ITN (Teletext) 1230hrs April 9th.
Alpha Company 40 Commando RM,seize Al-Qaeda cave complex during covert mission last week,after securing the area the Valley was handed over to the US 101st Airborne Div. Well done 40. When the "Saint's" go marching in. Aye jr

[daveitfc]

CONGRATS to 40 commando.
Keep up the good work

[Yorkie Malone]

Now that the 101st has it the question arises.

How long before 45 have to go and get it back again??

SyY

[harry hackedoff]

That`s a fair one, Yorkie
Would that be the same Alpha of anti-trap team legend? If so, they won`t have a prob over there. The words " plums" "trap" and "door" will come in usefull
yours Aye
Harry

[Yorkie Malone]

Flicking through the channels as you do and clicked onto FOX NEWS.

On the ticker tape that was running at the bottom was the comment.

41 (yes 41) go in and assist US forces.

Question: Is this really Afganistan or are the Yanks still fighting a rearguard over Korea?

Question: Wonder what happened to 40 and 45? Hope they are ok

SyY

[Jason The Argonaut]

9 children dead after U.S. air strike in Afghanistan
 
Canadian Press


HUTALA, Afghanistan (AP) -- Children's hats and shoes littered a bloody field cratered by gunfire Sunday after a U.S. air strike, aimed at a wanted Taliban commander, mistakenly killed nine children in an Afghan mountain village.

The American warplane was targeting Mullah Wazir, once a local commander for the hardline Islamic militia. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and a U.S. military official said Wazir was killed in the attack, but residents and local officials said he escaped.

The strike was the latest U.S. air attack to kill Afghan civilians as coalition forces hunt for remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida who have stepped up violence in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Khalilzad said he was "deeply saddened" by the "tragic loss of innocent life" and had spoken to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the attack. A senior U.S. military officer and Afghan officials were meeting Sunday with the bereaved families in the eastern Afghan village of Hutala, he said.

The United Nation's envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said he was "profoundly distressed." The air strike, "which follows similar incidents, adds to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country," Brahimi said.

In Hutala, a field was pockmarked by dozens of small craters from the U.S. A-160 aircraft's guns. There were pools of blood, and articles of children's clothing were strewn on the ground.

"They were just playing ball, and then the shots came down," said Hamidullah, a distraught villager who said his eight-year-old son, Habibullah, was among those killed. Like many Afghans, they have only one name.

U.S. army Maj. Christopher West said the target -- identified by the U.S. ambassador as Wazir -- was killed in the attack, south of the city of Ghazni, 160 kilometres southwest of the capital, Kabul.

"At the time we initiated the attack, we did not know there were children nearby," West said from the U.S. military headquarters at Bagram, north of Kabul.

West and Khalilzad said U.S. troops had gone to the scene and identified Wazir among the dead. They also discovered the bodies of the nine children.

Khalilzad stopped short of acknowledging that the military was responsible, saying an investigation was underway.

"The Americans wanted to bomb Mullah Wazir, but they bombed a different house," said Jawaid Khan, the Ghazni governor's secretary. "The people there are very afraid. They have no idea why the Americans bombed their village." He put the number of children killed at eight and said two other men also were killed.

About a dozen U.S. soldiers stood guard outside a mud house in Hutala that locals said belonged to Wazir.

West called Wazir a "known terrorist." But Wazir was not known as a major player during the regime of the hardline Islamic Taliban militia, which was ousted two years ago by U.S.-led forces.

Khalilzad said Wazir "had bragged of his personal involvement in attacks on innocent Afghan citizens." Local Afghan official Ahmad Zia Masood said Wazir himself fired at U.S. helicopters on Friday.

West said U.S. troops had collected "extensive intelligence over an extended period of time" and located Wazir at an "isolated, rural site."

The 11,500 U.S.-led troops hunting Taliban and al-Qaida remnants in south and east Afghanistan often are supported by air power, and there have been a string of incidents in which warplanes have mistakenly killed civilians.

By an Associated Press count from hospitals and other reliable sources conducted in February 2002, at least 500 to 600 Afghan civilians were killed by air strikes during the U.S.-led campaign that removed the Taliban. Since then, as U.S. forces try to stamp out Taliban fighters, more deaths have occurred.

The worst incident was in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. air force AC-130 gunship in Uruzgan province, which borders Ghazni province.

On April 9, a U.S. warplane mistakenly bombed a home, killing 11 civilians. Another air strike in Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan on Oct. 31 reportedly killed at least eight civilians in a house.

Taliban attacks -- including the Nov. 16 drive-by shooting death of a French aid worker -- have prompted international aid agencies to reduce operations in Afghanistan's south and east.