The US military said yesterday at least 20 civilians and 60 insurgents may have died in a disputed US-Taliban clash earlier this month, refuting the Afghan government’s assertion that 140 civilians were killed.
In Kabul, meanwhile, a US service member was killed in a roadside bomb attack, the military said.
Preliminary findings could not conclusively determine the number of people killed during the May 4 to May 5 battle in Bala Buluk district of western Farah Province, the US military said in a statement.
PHOTO: AP
The clash has soured already tense relations between the US military and the Afghan government. In an attempt to soothe these relations, America’s top envoy in Afghanistan joined Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday in extending their condolences to the families of the victims near the site of the battle.
The US military statement said its aircraft destroyed several rural buildings where insurgents were regrouping after the fight, in which some 300 militants had participated.
Colonel Greg Julian, the chief US military spokesman, said eight buildings were targeted, and 13 missiles were fired from US military aircraft during the battle.
“The investigation team estimates that 60 to 65 Taliban extremists were killed in these engagements, while at least 20 to 30 civilians may have been killed during the fighting,” the statement said.
“A review of the physical evidence is inconclusive in determining the exact number of civilian and insurgent casualties,” it said.
Karzai has long pleaded with the US to minimize civilian deaths during its military operations and not use airstrikes in villages.
He said civilian deaths at the hands of foreign troops erode support for the fight against the Taliban, who have made a comeback after they were ousted in the US-led invasion in 2001.
On Tuesday, Karzai urged the US to distinguish between villagers and militants.
“All those people who wear a turban and have local clothes are not Taliban,” Karzai told the gathering. US troops “should cut down bombardment on them,” he said.
Afghans blame US airstrikes for the deaths and destruction in two villages in Bala Buluk, but it is unclear exactly how many people died there and under what circumstances.
Eight more Afghan civilians are believed to have been killed when NATO-led troops under attack in southern Afghanistan called in an air strike, the alliance said yesterday.
Soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) came under attack from about 25 insurgents in the province of Helmand on Tuesday and were forced to call in the strike, ISAF said in a statement.
“Tragically, it is believed that eight civilians were killed as a result of the air strike,” it said.
Meanwhile, the Afghan army killed 25 Taliban insurgents, including two commanders, in an operation to wrest back an area of southern Afghanistan from rebel control, a general said yesterday.
Heavy fighting has dogged the insurgent stronghold and opium-producing area in Helmand Province for days, with security forces saying that they killed 25 Taliban there nearly there a week ago.
Afghan troops backed by US-led forces went on the offensive in the Marja area, about 40km from the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, Helmand army commander General Mohaidin Ghori said.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate