Professor Marc W. Herold

POSTED JANUARY 6, 2002 --
During the past three weeks after the conclusion of the Tora Bora bombing campaign, U.S. planes shifted the focus of bombing to the Afghan provinces immediately south of Tora Bora -- Paktia and Paktika. The alleged 'rationale' was targeting and killing fleeing Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership. This represents the fourth phase in the U.S. air campaign against Afghanistan.

The bombing and missile attacks have slaughtered an additional 194 - 269 Afghan civilians between December 10 - 29th according to newswire reports and newspaper accounts citing first-hand accounts. The bombing attacks have been along a vector west of Khost:

After the U.S. assault upon Tora Bora, Taliban and foreign fighters, but also families of foreign fighters, fled eastward into Pakistan and southward into the provinces of Paktia, Logar, and Paktika. Reports abounded about foreign families living out of vehicles and travelling nightly around the canyons of central Paktia and southern Logar provinces, to avoid becoming targets of U.S. bombardment.¹

The first U.S. bombing attacks in the post-Tora Bora air campaign targeted the village of Mashikhel in Paktia province and a village in the Jaji district of Paktia.² Two jet fighters at noon attacked Mashikhel in Paktia, in the Jaji district near the border with Pakistan, aimed at what was upon an abandoned Taliban base. Eyewitnesses reported residences and the Saqawa mosque being hit, killing 10 and injuring 12 [the village had been hit two weeks earlier by 45 bombs which killed 4]. Refugees and eyewitness, Soorat Gul, told the story from Parachinar [Pakistan]. An entire family comprising Ghulam Shah, his wife and four children was wiped out. The same day two U.S. jets bombed the village of Mashkhel, 20 kms. from Sharana, the capital of Paktika, killing another 16 civilians, hitting a village and mosque. Three weeks earlier, on the evening of November 16th, during Taraweeh prayer time, U.S. planes targeting the home of a Taliban leader, Tribal Affairs Minister Mullah Jalaluddin Haqqani, hit a madrassa and a mosque in Khost, killing well over two dozen civilians.³

On December 20th, U.S. planes attacked a convoy of tribal elders en route from Khost to the inaugural ceremony of the new Afghan Government in Kabul, on December 22nd . I have written on that incident elsewhere at length.⁴ The death toll in that attack upon the convoy and villages ranged from 20-65.

On the night of December 27/28th at 2 a.m. U.S. bombs struck the village of Naka in northern Paktika province. The announced target was Taliban leadership gathered in the home of the Taliban's Maulvi Ahmad Taha, former Taliban commander and governor of Kunar province. Press reports mentioned 25-40 persons being killed in the attack, 5-25 houses being destroyed, and 4-60 persons injured.⁵ A week later, information emerged indicating that, indeed, the Taliban's feared Minister of Security, Qari Ahmadullah, as well as two sons of Mullah Taha, were killed in the attack.⁶ Mullah Taha was absent. Another Taliban leader and commander, Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi was mentioned as possibly having also been killed [ 50/50 chance of having killed Rocketi = 1/2 a Taliban leader]. Salam Rocketi had been the senior Taliban military official in Jalalabad in early October.

A couple days later, a night-time raid on December 28/29th, hit the village of Shekhan, 20 kms west of Gardez in Paktia province. Fifteen civilians were killed and three houses were totally destroyed, according to witnesses arriving in the Pakistani border town of Miran Shah.⁷

Villagers sift through debris in Qalaye Niazi

In one of the most serious bombing attacks upon civilians in the Afghan War, a B-52, a strike jet, and two helicopters carried out a night-time strike on December 29th against the village of Niazi Qalaye, 20 kms north of Gardez, near the Terah Pass, on the highway linking Gardez with Kabul.⁸ The attack killed 92 - 107 civilians, destroyed 12 homes, and injured 10 people. Janat Gul recounted how the 24 members of her family perished. Huge craters littered the area and human remains were scattered in the craters.⁸ Craters are not caused by secondary explosions of ammunition dumps. A resident, Qismat Khan, said the attacks began around 11 p.m. and an ammunition dump of the ousted Taliban had previously existed in the village. By Sunday night, over fifty graves had already been dug, and other victims who were semi-nomadic farmers had been returned to the mountainous region of Khost. Villagers on the spot vehemently deny any presence of Taliban or foreign troops in the area. Even the United Nations confirmed that "all of the injured and dead were civilians," though the U.N figure is 52 -- 17 men, 10 women and 25 children [which presumably omits the bodies of the semi-nomads].

Response of one Major Bill Harrison of U.S. Central Command, "if there were innocent people killed, it would be a direct cause of them [Al Qaeda] putting people at risk by living alongside civilians. It is well known to us that there was Al Qaeda/Taliban leadership [in the village]. That is why we attacked the compound. We feel it was a legitimate military target." And NBC News dutifully echoed the Pentagon line: the report of civilian casualties "could not be more wrong," saying that intelligence indicated that Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership was in a mud-walled village compound.¹⁰

The Jang newspaper, the News International, reported after a four day bombing pause, that on January 3rd, U.S. B-1 and F-18 aircraft as well as AC-130 gun ships bombed an old, sprawling Al Qaeda base in the Zhawar area south of Khost, killing 32 civilians.¹¹ Eleven wounded were being treated in the Pakistani border town of Miran Shah.

A Tani tribal elder, Ghazi Nawaz Tani, was quoted,

"The bombing is very intense and very heavy. Many people have died. The United States should stop bombing. They are all civilians in this area."

The two villages of Kaskai and Khodyaki were particularly hard hit. On January 4th, the U.S. attacks in the Zhawar area continued, with B-52, B-1, F-18 and AC-130 gun ships.

Comment of General Richard Myers about the Zhawar bombing, "there was activity that warranted it to be hit." The newest U.S. action was interpreted as a clear signal to the new Kabul regime that regardless of its concern for civilian casualties, the U.S. would stay the course and continue bombing.¹²

The recent bombings have occurred in the territory of the Ghilzai Pashiun tribal group, not represented in the new Afghan regime in Kabul. Karzai hails from a sub-tribe of the Durrani Pashtuns, who have not always had peaceful relations with the Ghilzai.

And so it goes.

What is the 'scorecard'?

One, possibly two, Taliban leaders killed and 194 - 269 civilians killed over three and a half weeks [or between 55 - 77 per week, about the average between October 7 - December 6th ] and a couple ammunition dumps destroyed:

* some of this number might include Taliban members

Footnotes

1 Human Rights Watch, "Afghanistan: Families of Foreign Fighters at Risk," HRW Report [December 4, 2001].

2 Rahimullah Yusufzai, "US Warplanes Now Targeting Civilians," the News International [December 12, 2001].

3 On November 16th, 62 people were killed in the Khost area by U.S. bombs. During the night of November 16th, U.S. planes dropped three bombs upon Khost, but one 500 lb JDAM bomb went astray hitting a mosque. Thirty four people in the adjoining madrassa died instantly. That same night, U.S. planes bombed the village of Zani Khail, 10 kms west of Khost, killing another 28 people, including an entire family of 19. Reports from: "60 Killed in Errant U.S. Bombing in Khost," Afghan Islamic Press; The Hindustan Times [November 18, 2001], and "Up to 140 Killed in Last Two Days in U.S. Air Strikes: A.I.P.," Times of India [November 19, 2001].

4 See Marc W. Herold, "An Average Day - 65 Afghan Civilians Killed by U.S. Bombs on December 20th ," at : http://www.cursor.org/stories/ontarget.htm and also "Afghan Convoy Row Grows," BBC News Online [December 23, 2001].

5 Rory Carroll, "Deaths Blamed on US Blunder," the Guardian [December 28, 2001]; BBC News, "US Bombers 'Hit Taleban Hideout'," BBC News Online [December 28, 2001].

6 See CNN.com January 2, 2002

7 Reuters, "US Bombing Kills 15 in East Afghanistan," Express India [December 30, 2001]. Also reported in The Frontier Post [December 31, 2001] and The Times of India [December 31, 2001].

8 Reported in the Guardian [December 31, 2001], the Independent [December 31, 2001], Mohammed Bashir for Reuters [December 31, 2001], as well as press reports in Central Asia.

9 Rory Carroll, "US Accused of Killing Over 100 Villagers in Air Strike," the Guardian [January 1, 2002].; Agence France-PresseSg .news.yahoo.com [December 31, 2001], and Peter Foster, "US Bombs 'Kill 107 Villagers'," Telegraph [January 3, 2002]; "Pressure Grows to Stop Afghan Bombing," BBC News Online [January 3, 2002].

10 "U.S. Denies Errant Bombing Report," MSNBC.com [December 31, 2001].

11 "U.S. Bombs Kill 32 Civilians Near Al-Qaeda Base: Reports," the Hindustan Times [January 4, 2002], citing an AFP report. The Times of India [January 5, 2002] ran the same report based upon refugees who spoke with the Afghan Islamic Press. A day later, more details emerged in "US Bombs Kill 32 Afghan Villagers, 11 Wounded," Dawn [January 5, 2002].

12 The Independent [January 4, 2002].