"NATO troops kill 4 unarmed Afghans; Karzai condemns deaths; Military says two were insurgents, warning ignored" by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press | April 21, 2010
Afghans prayed yesterday in Khost Province beside the coffins of four people killed Monday night by NATO troops. (Kamal Sadat/Reuters)
KABUL — NATO troops fired on a vehicle that approached their convoy in eastern Afghanistan, killing four unarmed Afghans and drawing swift condemnation yesterday from President Hamid Karzai.
FLASHBACK:
"Deadly US attack on Afghan bus sparks outrage; Troops’ fire kills 5 civilians, wounds 18" by Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times | April 13, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar yesterday morning, killing and wounding civilians and igniting angry anti-American demonstrations in a city where winning Afghan support is pivotal to the war effort.
Not going to win people over that way!
The American-led military command in Kabul called the killings a “tragic loss of life’’ and said that troops fired in the early-morning light not knowing that the vehicle was a passenger bus and believing that it posed a threat to a military convoy clearing bombs from a highway.
The shooting, which killed as many as 5 civilians and wounded 18, occurred on the eve of the most important offensive of the war.
Related: Taliban Screaming For a Stop
What, they just decided to barrel ahead, eh?
In coming weeks, thousands of American, NATO, and Afghan troops are expected to try to take control of the Kandahar region, the spiritual home of the Taliban. It was the latest case in which NATO or American forces fired on and killed civilians near a checkpoint or military convoy because they were perceived to have come too close or to be approaching too fast.
Yes, it happens ALL THE TIME but when you are an empire-supporting, occupation -adopting, war-promoting media you don't want to make a big deal of that. It would take the shone of the shi.... I mean, success of the effort.
Afterward, hundreds of demonstrators poured into the area around a bus station where the damaged bus was taken on the western outskirts of Kandahar. They blocked the road with burning tires for an hour and shouted, “Death to America’’ and “Death to infidels,’’ while condemning the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to people there.
Oh, I DO NOT THINK we WON ANY CONVERTS THERE!!
So HOW MUCH MASS-MURDERING FAILURE before you GET OUT, America?
The governor of Kandahar Province, Tooryalai Wesa, called for the commander of the military convoy that opened fire to be prosecuted under military law. “If you want to stop the bus, it should be shot in the tires,’’ Wesa said. “Why shoot the people inside?’’
Yeah, that is a GREAT POINT!!!
But there were disputes over details, including the number of dead, the relative positions of the convoys, and how the troops could not have understood that the vehicle was a passenger bus. It was also unclear whether the troops had first shot flares and warned the driver to stay back, as military rules typically require. NATO said they did.
Then they didn't. That is just the way one must read a newspaper these days.
More than 30 people have been killed and 80 wounded in convoy and checkpoint shootings since last summer, but not one of those killed was found to have been a threat, military officials say.
Then it is WAR CRIMINAL MURDER, isn't it?
The shooting near Kandahar occurred just after daybreak as the bus was taking scores of passengers to Nimruz Province, said Zalmy Ayoubi, a spokesman for Wesa. Two people who had been on the bus said that an American convoy 60 to 70 yards ahead opened fire as the bus began to pull to the side of the road to allow another military convoy to pass from behind.
Un-real!!!
They were ACTUALLY GETTING OUT of the WAY!!!!
The two convoys and the bus were on the main highway in the Zhari district, west of the city of Kandahar. The windows on one side of the bus were shot out.
What the rewritten, reedited, PoS cut for you webbers:
"An American convoy was ahead of us and another convoy was following us, and we were going to pull off the road, and suddenly the Americans opened fire," said Nida Muhammad, a passenger who suffered a shoulder wound.
"This bus wasn't like a suicide bomber, and we did not touch or come close to the convoy," he said. "It seems they are opening fire on civilians intentionally."
Yeah, WHY would you want to include an EYEWITNESS in the REPORT, right, NYT?
BACK to TODAY!!!
NATO said yesterday that two of those killed Monday night were later identified as “known insurgents,’’ but Karzai and the provincial chief of police, Abdul Hakim Hesaq Zoy, said they were all civilians.
Zoy said one of the victims was a 12-year-old boy.
Just WINNING HEARTS and MINDS!
Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said the four were found to be unarmed. He added the military concluded two of the men were insurgents based on information found in the military’s bi-metric database.
Meet the NEW WORLD ORDER!
NATO released a statement saying the car kept accelerating toward the military convoy despite attempts to flag the vehicle down by flashing lights and firing warning shots.
NATO is a F***ING LIAR!
“Several rounds were fired in an attempt to disable the vehicle, and finally shots were fired into the vehicle itself,’’ the statement said....
And FOUR MORE INNOCENT PEOPLE were MURDERED by this damn occupation!
Also Monday, gunmen stormed a mosque and killed the deputy mayor of Kandahar as he knelt for evening prayers in southern Afghanistan.
Related: "Al-CIA-Duh" Invades Afghanistan
CIA Assassins Lend a Helping Hand in Afghanistan
CIA Strike Teams Swoop Into Afghanistan
The Boston Globe Bucks Up the CIA
The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Blackening Out Blackwater Assassins
More Assassins Headed to Afghanistan
Gunmen, huh?The attack highlights the challenges facing NATO forces as they try to push the Taliban out of southern Afghanistan.
Azizullah Yarmal, who was in his 50s, was shot through the head as he and dozens of others began their prayers, Zalmai Ayubi, spokesman for Kandahar province, said yesterday. Mosques typically provide little security, making them vulnerable to insurgent death squads.
Yeah, right.
NOT EVEN the PIOUS MUSLIM PATSIES of "Al-CIA-Duh" would do that!
“This is the work of the enemies of Afghanistan,’’ Ayubi said. “They don’t want these honest people to serve the Afghan people and work in government institutions.’’ The assailants escaped.
Yeah, I think we KNOW WHO he is TALKING ABOUT!!
Also see: Taliban I Told You So
I'm convinced more than ever it was NOT "Taliban."
Kandahar is the largest city in southern Afghanistan and the birthplace of the Taliban, which still has considerable support there. A US-led operation planned for this summer aims to clear Kandahar of Taliban fighters and break the grip of warlords who have allowed the fighters to slip back in.
Yeah, whatever, MSM.
President Obama has ordered 30,000 more troops to back up the Kandahar offensive. The operation will be a critical test of the Afghan war.
We've already lost.
It's been nine years and its worse than ever?
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And our presence is NOT HELPING Afghans at all:
"NATO confirms Afghans killed by convoy were civilians; Had described two of four victims as ‘known insurgents’" by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press | April 22, 2010
Afghans carried the coffins of four people killed when a driver ignored warnings to stop near one of NATO’s convoys on Monday. (Associated Press)
KABUL — NATO acknowledged yesterday that four unarmed Afghans killed this week when a military convoy opened fire on their vehicle were all civilians, correcting an earlier statement that two of the dead were “known insurgents.’’
So WHAT LAME-ASS EXCUSES are they going to come up with?
The shooting Monday night in Khost province sparked an immediate outcry from the victims’ relatives, who insisted that all four were civilians driving home from a volleyball game.
And they were GUNNED DOWN by their "liberators."
The youngest boy was just 13, said Rahmatullah Mansour, whose two sons and two nephews were killed in the shooting.
Frikkin' war crime!
Yesterday, NATO said it had described two of the victims as insurgents because their fingerprints matched those in a military biometric database. But their presence in the database does not necessarily mean they were insurgents.
UN-FLIPPING-BELIEVABLE!!
SCREW your MURDEROUS NEW WORLD ORDER, NATO!
Stay there and HASTEN the DESTRUCTION of the EMPIRE in that GRAVEYARD of empires!!!!
“The term ‘insurgent’ should not have been used,’’ NATO said in a statement.
Tell that to the CORPSE, you lying sacks of s***!!!!!!!!!!!!
NATO said it fired on the car because it kept accelerating toward the military convoy despite attempts to flag the vehicle down by flashing lights and firing warning shots. The victims were unarmed and no weapons were found in the car.
And I AM NOT INTERESTED in NATO'S LIES anymore!!!
Civilian deaths at the hands of US and other international forces are believed to fuel resentment of the Afghan government and generate sympathy for the insurgency.
Ya think?
Earlier this month, US forces fired on a civilian bus outside the southern city of Kandahar, killing four Afghans and stoking anger over the international presence.
Yeah, I FLASHED BACK for you!
Mansour said that the victims in Monday’s shooting were his sons Faizullah, 13, and Nasratullah, 17; and nephews Maiwand and Amirullah, both 18. He said all were students except Amirullah, who was a police officer.
“Nobody can imagine what is going on in my family,’’ Mansour told The Associated Press.
No, sir, we CAN NOT and I am SO, SO SORRY!!!!!!
“My two brothers and I lost sons. It was difficult even to recognize their bodies because there were bullet holes in their face, chest, hands, and feet.’’
Hey, when WE KILL YOU, we f***ing KILL YA!!!!!!!!
********
International and Afghan forces, meanwhile, continued operations targeting individuals and networks responsible for making and placing roadside bombs responsible for most military casualties and large numbers of civilian deaths.
Pfft!
Yup, and somehow the situation keeps getting worse.
Whatever!
NATO said a suspected Taliban bomb-maker was captured in Kandahar’s Arghandab district in a raid Tuesday night, along with nearly a dozen other suspected insurgents.
One person was detained in the operation.
Yesterday, the Afghan army destroyed a cache of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in a controlled explosion in Kabul province.
Oh, like a CONTROLLED DEMOLITION?
Ammonium nitrate is widely used by the Taliban as an ingredient of roadside bombs, and its use by farmers has been banned in Afghanistan.
Related: Afghanistan's Insurgent Bomb Shop
Yeah, it DOES SMELL like BS to ME!
Meanwhile, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, lauded Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday for his efforts to reach out to broad swaths of the population, including the Taliban insurgency....
PFFFT! More BS!
The US general is the latest American official to praise Karzai, easing strained relations that followed a series of speeches in which the Afghan president blamed the West for election fraud and bristled under US pressure.
See: Krazy Karzai
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said two days ago that the disruption in relations had ended.
Whatever, liar.
"Afghan Parliament member claims kin killed in US raid" by Joshua Partlow and Javed Hamdard, Washington Post | April 30, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — A member of the Afghan Parliament said US soldiers raided her home and killed a relative early yesterday morning, the latest controversial allegation of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.
The confrontation at the home of lawmaker Safiya Sidiqi set off an angry protest in the Surkh Rod district of eastern Afghanistan, with residents blocking the highway to Kabul for hours and shouting “death to America.’’
You REALLY KNOW HOW to WIN OVER PEOPLE, AmeriKan military!
In a statement, NATO officials said a patrol with international and Afghan troops killed “one armed individual’’ while chasing a Taliban facilitator in the district. They said they tried to get him to lower his gun with hand signals and commands through a translator.
This the KNEE-JERK, REFLEX COVER STORY and LIE, or... ????
“The individual ignored the repeated commands, raised his weapon, and aimed at the combined force, and then was shot and killed,’’ the statement read.
Sidiqi said that story was false. She said she was in Kabul when she received a late-night phone call from her brother, saying he believed a gang of thieves was approaching the family home near the village of Nazrabad.
“He said ‘people are entering our house.’ Then the phone disconnected,’’ she recalled.
After repeated calls to Nangarhar police officials and relatives over the next several hours, Sidiqi said, she learned that dozens of Afghan and US soldiers had entered the family compound, blindfolded and handcuffed men and women, and shot her relative, whose name was Amanullah, as he stood in a doorway leading to the garden. Based on those accounts, she said, she did not believe her relative was armed.
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Thus this next piece is no surprise:
"Civilian casualties on rise in Afghanistan" by Associated Press | May 3, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — A roadside bomb tore through a minibus in eastern Afghanistan yesterday as the government said civilian casualties are on the rise in advance of a military buildup to combat the resurgent Taliban.
The explosion struck the Zurmat district of Paktia Province last night, district chief Gulab Shah said. There was no official death toll in the Taliban-held area, but a witness said he counted seven corpses and 14 wounded. The witness, who asked that his name not be used because he feared for his safety, said many of the victims appeared to be women and children....
Then it WAS NOT TALIBAN, but it was done to MAKE TALIBAN LOOK BAD!!!
Civilian deaths at the hands of US and other international forces are highly sensitive in Afghanistan, although the UN says the Taliban are responsible for most civilian casualties.
Hey, NATO, US, UN -- ALL LIARS!!!!!
Still,
the backlash could undermine US strategy ahead of a summer military operation in Kandahar, a key southern city that is the spiritual home of the Taliban.
Yeah, the MORE PEOPLE YOU KILL the more of a BACKLASH!
The goal of the US-led operation is to flood in troops, rout the militants and rush in new governance and development projects to win the loyalty of Kandahar’s half-million residents....
Even if they DON'T WANT YOU THERE!!!
There are fears the problem could get worse with 30,000 US and NATO reinforcements heading to Afghanistan as part of a military buildup to take on the Taliban in the south....
It's a GUARANTEE!!!
And look at what a PoS appears days later:
"Afghan victims of violence voice concerns about peace talks" by Jamey Keaten, Associated Press | May 10, 2010
Afghans gathered yesterday in Kabul to recount atrocities they suffered under Taliban and Soviet regimes. (Dar Yasin/ Associated Press)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmad Shah knows more than most Afghans about the nation’s 30 years of bloodshed, repression, and war: He lost his hands in a mine blast. His father died in an antigovernment uprising. His brother was shot 30 times and killed by a rival. And Taliban thugs once beat him up even though he had no hands to punch back.
Shah, 46, was among the scores of Afghans who spoke of their suffering caused by the Taliban and Soviet regimes at a “victim’s jirga’’ yesterday — a gathering billed as one of the first of its kind for victims to voice their concerns about the possibility of making peace with those who have perpetrated the violence throughout the years.
NOTHING about the AMERIKAN and NATO ATROCITIES, huh?
Yeah, that would be like, "NEWS!"
Legal advocates who organized the conference are hoping the stories will put pressure on President Hamid Karzai, who is hosting a national peace assembly next month, to seek a consensus on how to reconcile with insurgents and help end the war.
I am DEFINITELY FOR THAT!
The FIRST THING NEEDED is for the WORLD PRESS to QUIT DEMONIZING the PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE and are DEFENDING THEIR HOMES!
FAT F***ING CHANCE of THAT happening.
Karzai has said he would accept back into the fold any insurgent who renounces violence, severs ties with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, and respects the Afghan Constitution.
So WHEN are USrael and NATO going to RENOUNCE VIOLENCE?
He has said he would even talk to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if it would help end the war.
See: Taliban Want to Talk
U.S. will find a way to f*** it up.
See: Pakistan Sabotaged Taliban Peace Talks
And here we went and double-crossed them again.
Such prospects will be on the agenda when Karzai meets with officials in Washington today.
About 1,500 people from across Afghan society have been invited to attend the assembly to seek a consensus on a reconciliation plan. Some victims believe those responsible for the violence should be brought to justice and want to deprive them of regaining any positions of power.
The legal advocates hope to build public pressure for those goals. But ultimately, political leaders like Karzai will have final say on any reconciliation....
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