Tag: Azizabad

Centcom to Review Recent Bombing Incident in Afghanistan

On 8 September 2008 Human Rights Watch issued a 43 page report which shows that civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and NATO air-strikes had nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, and that recent deadly air-strikes are “exacerbating the problem and fueling a public backlash” and that they have dramatically decreased public support for the Afghan Government and for the presence of US and NATO troops.  

Back on 22 August of this year the United States military claimed that 30 to 35 “militants” (note that they don’t refer to them as “terrorists”) were killed in what was called a successful operation against the Taliban. They also admitted that 5 to 7 civilians, might have been killed. This was a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support.

Villagers in Azizabad, Shindand District in Herat Province in western Afghanistan claimed that more than 90 civilians were killed in the bombing raid, the majority being women and children.

Fox News & Oliver North Involved with U.S. Afghanistan Massacre Cover-up

The UK TimesOnline has posted a video of the aftermath of the killings of dozens of villagers in the Afghan village of Nawabad (called Azizabad in other stories). The U.S. has maintained that seven civilians and three dozen Taliban militants were killed in the combined U.S. Special Forces/Afghan Army/U.S. air operation last August 21. The United Nations and local villagers insist that 92 civilians were killed, over half of them children. According to the article:

In the video scores of bodies are seen laid out in a building that villagers say is used as a mosque; the people were killed apparently during a combined operation by US special forces and Afghan army commandos in western Afghanistan. The film was shot on a mobile phone by an Afghan doctor who arrived the next morning.

Local people say that US forces bombed preparations for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader. Residential compounds were levelled by US attack helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130 Spectre gunship.