Petraeus: Afghans burned their own children..
Joshua Partlow - 23.02.2011 18:40
Joshua Partlow - February 21, 2011 "Washington Post" --  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/21/AR2011022103256.html?hpid=topnews
Gen. David H. Petraeus: Afghans burned their own children:
Petraeus's comments on coalition attack reportedly offend Karzai government
KABUL - To the shock of President Hamid Karzai's aides, Gen. David H. Petraeus suggested Sunday at the presidential palace that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties, according to two participants at the meeting.
The exact language Petraeus used in the closed-door session is not known, and neither is the precise message he meant to convey. But his remarks about the deadly U.S. military operation in Konar province were deemed deeply offensive by some in the room. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.
They said Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, dismissed allegations by Karzai's office and the provincial governor that civilians were killed and said residents had invented stories, or even injured their children, to pin the blame on U.S. forces and force an end to the operation.
"I was dizzy. My head was spinning," said one participant, referring to Petraeus's remarks. "This was shocking. Would any father do this to his children? This is really absurd."
Petraeus, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
U.S. and Afghan officials are investigating what happened during the three- to four-day operation in the mountains of Ghaziabad district, one of the most dangerous and inhospitable parts of Afghanistan. U.S. military officials said there is no evidence that civilians died. The governor of Konar, Fazlullah Wahidi, disagreed, citing reports from villagers that dozens of women and children perished. Karzai's office placed the civilian death toll at 50.
The key period involves five hours between Thursday night and Friday morning, during which Apache helicopters fired on suspected insurgents who had gathered to attack U.S. and Afghan troops, said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, the top U.S. military spokesman in Kabul.
The insurgents fled down a hillside in small groups, away from any houses. U.S. and Afghan ground troops remained far to the south, Smith said.
During the next five hours, Smith said, surveillance drones tracked the fighters while the Apaches fired 30 mm Gatling guns, rockets and Hellfire missiles. "I have reviewed the footage and found no evidence women and children were among the fighters," he said. "Again, no civilian structures were anywhere near where these engagements took place. It was at night and in very rugged terrain."
According to intercepted conversations, Smith said, insurgents discussed contacting government officials to tell them that civilians were being killed so that coalition helicopters could be stopped from firing. The insurgents also discussed their casualties, "stating they lost 50 and needed help in getting out the wounded and quickly burying the dead," he said.
On Saturday, Wahidi, the provincial governor, sent a three-person fact-finding team up the valley to the village of Helgal. They returned with seven injured people, including a woman and a man, both 22 years old, and five boys and girls 16 or younger. Smith said they had burns and shrapnel wounds, none of them life-threatening.
The U.S. military "did have initial reports that the feet and hands of the children appeared to have been burned," Smith said. "We have observed increased reporting of children being disciplined by having their hands and feet dipped into boiling water. No one is claiming this is the case in this instance, but it may well be."
Petraeus apparently had suggested something along these lines at the national security council meeting Sunday, remarks that "really bothered everyone," including Karzai, one participant said.
"He claimed that in the midst of the [operation] some pro-Taliban parents in contact with a government official decided to create a civilian casualty claim to pressure international forces to cease the [operation]. They burned hands and legs of some of their children and sent them to the hospital," a second participant said.
The anger greeting this message showed the political challenges inherent in dealing with allegations of civilian casualties, particularly in remote and dangerous areas where investigations prove difficult. The Karzai government has repeatedly taken the U.S.-led coalition to task for killing noncombatants over the years.
"Killing 60 people, and then blaming the killing on those same people, rather than apologizing for any deaths? This is inhuman," one Afghan official said. "This is a really terrible situation."
The U.S. military is reviewing all operations, including other airstrikes, in Ghaziabad during the three to four days in question. "The review of these engagements is still underway, so there's always the possibility one of them may have resulted in civilian casualties, but regardless, reports from elders in the region appear unrealistically high and unsupported by anything we know to date," Smith said. The investigation "is still ongoing, so no final judgements are being made at this time."
A senior U.S. military official responsible for Konar province said, "We haven't seen much evidence of many civilian casualties."
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27542.htm
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Sunday, February 20, 2011; 11:33 PM
Joshua Partlow and Habib Zahori - Washington Post Foreign Service
Afghan officials allege that 65 civilians were killed in U.S. military operation
KABUL - Afghan government officials alleged Sunday that a U.S. military operation in the remote mountains of northeastern Afghanistan killed 65 innocent people, including 22 women and more than 30 children, the most serious allegation of civilian casualties in months.
The governor of Konar province, Fazlullah Wahidi, said that NATO forces launched the operation four days ago in the Ghaziabad district, a desolate area near the province's northern border with Pakistan, where a lethal mix of insurgent groups operate.
"According to locals in the area, American helicopters have been constantly bombing the village and have caused tremendous civilian casualties," Wahidi said in an interview. He said he received his information from residents "trapped" in the village.
American commanders went into crisis mode Sunday, launching an investigation into the incident to find out what happened and prevent the episode from damaging relations with the Afghan government.
"We take all those allegations seriously, and we'll get to the bottom of them as best we possibly can," said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"It's just the challenging situation that goes on with these type of incidents: an isolated area, a tough area, tough terrain."
The official said that those killed, as in most such incidents, were wearing civilian clothes. "But civilians involved in hostilities, I think that was the majority of them."
A NATO statement said that video and information from the coalition showed that 36 insurgents, who were carrying weapons, were killed. The U.S. troops involved responded to insurgent activity and fired with aircraft and an unmanned Predator drone, the senior military official said.
"It's up in the mountains and it's not around villages, so we don't think it's very likely" they were civilians, the official said.
Such incidents in the past have been a source of major tension between the Afghan government and coalition troops. The loss of civilian life has regularly prompted a stern response from President Hamid Karzai, who on Sunday strongly condemned the killings.
Karzai, who put the death toll at 50 civilians, said in a statement that it is his responsibility to protect Afghans' lives and property and that he "will take any steps necessary to prevent and stop civilian casualties in his country."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021900458.html
Konar province has proved to be one of the most treacherous parts of Afghanistan for U.S. troops. The forested mountains and river valleys offer endless hiding places for insurgents.
Since the 101st Airborne Division arrived in eastern Afghanistan in June, its troops have killed about 2,500 people, compared with about 1,500 in the same period the previous year, said Maj. Gen. John Campbell, the top commander in eastern Afghanistan.
Konar, in particular, has been extremely violent.
"That's been our most kinetic area," Campbell said in an interview this month. "We've dropped over 900 bombs since we've been here, and probably greater than 50 percent has been up there. We've fired over 30,000 artillery rounds, mortar rounds, and much of it has been up there."
The residents, long accustomed to living in essentially ungoverned territory, have fought to keep foreign forces out.
"They're in extreme isolation," Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend, a senior Army official in eastern Afghanistan, said of parts of Konar. "They just don't want us there."
The U.S. military has withdrawn from some areas, such as the Korengal valley, because years of bloody battle failed to yield results. Insurgents from al-Qaeda, the Haqqani network, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, and Lashkar-i-Taiba have been known to operate in Konar.
"There's a toxic stew of bad guys up there," Townsend said. "We don't want a sanctuary to emerge for Taliban and terrorists such as Lashkar-i-Taiba who may harbor transnational goals."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022000276.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022000276_2.html
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