US Opens Probe in Deadly Afghan Strike

Strike on Azizabad seems far deadlier than military admits
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 8, 2008 7:34 AM CDT
US Opens Probe in Deadly Afghan Strike
An Afghan woman shouts anti-US slogans in front of her destroyed home in Azizabad, the village in Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan.   (AP Photo/Fraidoon Pooyaa, File)

Two weeks after it launched a major airstrike in Azizabad, the American military is still insisting that only 5 to 7 civilians died in the raid. But the villagers, the Afghan government, the UN and human rights groups all say that the civilian death toll was much higher—that more than 90 Afghans were killed, mostly women and children. Yesterday, the senior American commander in Afghanistan launched an investigation into the massacre.

Until recently, the American military has accused the villagers who bewailed the deaths of spreading Taliban propaganda. But a New York Times reporter in Azizabad saw dozens of freshly dug graves, along with cell phone photographs of at least 11 dead children. The raid has stoked deepening anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan; one villager said, "They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us. God will punish them."
(More Afghanistan stories.)

Get breaking news in your inbox.
What you need to know, as soon as we know it.
Sign up
Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X