PressTV – 2011-07-08 00:32:35
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/188079.html
Afghans Protest NATO Air Raid
PressTV
KHOST PROVINCE, Afghanistan (July 7, 2011) — Latest reports say hundreds of angry Afghans have taken to the streets to protest the deaths of several civilians in fresh US-led NATO air strikes. The protesters in Dumanda district of Khost province chanted anti-US slogans and blocked main roads in the region. The protests come as at least 13 civilians were killed in an air raid in the eastern Afghan province of Khost — 12 were women and children. The air strike came a day after a similar attack left two civilians dead in Ghazni province.
The US-led military alliance has acknowledged killing Afghan civilians. “At the time it was unknown to the security forces that those insurgents were operating among women and children,” Reuters quoted a NATO spokesman as saying.
Angry protesters urged the Afghan government to take serious action against the US-led strikes on civilians. The demonstrators threatened to take up arms and fight against Americans if they refuse to leave their country.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the US-led airstrikes and ground operations in various parts of Afghanistan over the past few months, with Afghans becoming increasingly outraged over the seemingly endless number of deadly assaults.
Civilian casualties have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and US-led foreign forces. The loss of civilian lives at the hands of foreign forces has drastically raised anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan.
The surge in violence in the country comes despite the presence of nearly 150,000 foreign troops that claim to be engaged in a so-called war on terror. The US-led war in Afghanistan, with civilian and military casualties at record highs, has become the longest war in the US history.
US-led Strike Kills 13 Civilians
PressTV
(July 7, 2011) — A US-led airstrike has killed at least 13 civilians, mostly women and children, in the troubled eastern Afghanistan, officials say. “Unfortunately eight women, four children, and one man were killed in a NATO airstrike on a residential house in Dowamanda district (of Khost) early this morning,” AFP quoted provincial police chief Mohamad Zazai as saying. In the past 24 hours, foreign forces have killed at least 17 civilians across Afghanistan — many of them women and children.
Following the US-led military attack, a large crowd of Afghans held an angry protest rally against the foreign forces. The developments come as US-led attacks continue to claim civilian lives in Afghanistan. Earlier, a NATO air attack killed two children in Ghazni province.
In early March, a US-led air strike claimed the lives of nine children, aged between seven and nine, in Darah-Ye Pech district in Kunar province in northeast Afghanistan.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the US-led airstrikes and ground operations in various parts of Afghanistan over the past few months, with Afghans becoming increasingly outraged over the seemingly endless number of deadly assaults.
Civilian casualties have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and US-led foreign forces. The loss of civilian lives at the hands of foreign forces has drastically raised anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan. The surge in violence in the country comes despite the presence of nearly 150,000 foreign troops that claim to be engaged in a so-called war on terror.
The US-led war in Afghanistan, with civilian and military casualties at record highs, has become the longest war in the US history.
‘Pakistani Militants Kill 38 Afghans’
PressTV
KABUL (July 7, 2011) — At least 33 Afghan policemen and five civilians have been reportedly killed during the fighting that erupted when Pakistani militants crossed into eastern Afghanistan. “The report we have now from the area is that 33 border police and five civilians, two of them women, have been killed,” Nuristan provincial governor Jamaluddin Badr said.
Militants attacked police posts in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan, AFP reported on Wednesday. Badr said almost 40 militants have been killed during the two days of fighting between Afghan police and Pakistani militants.
Afghanistan’s interior ministry put the death toll for Afghan police at 12, adding that “dozens” of militants were killed in a clearance operation. “The situation in the border areas of Kamdesh district has returned to normal and police are strengthening their positions,” ministry said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday to express concerns over the militants’ attack, Gilani’s office said. Escalating violence on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has displaced more than 200 Afghan families, according to local officials. Afghanistan says nearly 800 rockets, mortars and artillery shells have been fired from Pakistan into Afghan villages since late May, leading to the death, injury and displacement of dozens of civilians.
Pakistan has denied targeting Afghan land, saying that Pakistani villagers have also sustained casualties in attacks by Afghan militants. General Aminullah Amerkhail, an Afghan top border police commander for the eastern region, has resigned from his post in protest at Karzai’s stance toward the issue, saying Kabul should respond with counter-attacks.
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