Stench of death in a flattened village
Zeeshan Haider in Khorum, Afghanistan
Monday October 15, 2001
The Guardian
guardian.co.uk
An old man deferentially removed his turban as he spoke. "We
are poor people, don't hit us," he said. "We have nothing to do
with Osama bin Laden. We are innocent people."
"I lost my four daughters, my son and my wife in this attack,"
said Toray, a distraught farmer, who was out of his house when
the bombs struck.
To underline his point, he held up a piece of shrapnel with the
words "fin guided bomb" stencilled on it - virtually all he
recovered from the debris of his flattened home.
There are not many witnesses to say what happened to Khorum
village in eastern Afghanistan last Wednesday night; there are
not many survivors. One thing is clear. The simple collection of
mud huts and livestock pens in this village, around 38 miles from
the east Afghanistan town of Jalalabad, was hit by a devastating
firestorm.
Villagers said 20 to 25 bombs or missiles rained on the area in
two waves of attacks.
Taliban officials say Khorum was flattened in an air raid by US
warplanes and as many as 200 people may have been killed.
Officials say 160 bodies have already been pulled from the
rubble, and villagers from neighbouring hamlets were scrambling
around yesterday looking for more.
The stench of death enveloped the village. In the rubble of one
house, the remains of an arm stuck out from beneath a pile of
bricks. A leg had been uncovered nearby. There was also a
bloodstained pillow.
The carcasses of livestock - by which many Afghan farmers
measure their family's wealth - lay bloated in the surrounding
fields, attracting swarms of flies.
When our group of reporters - the first foreign nationals to be
allowed into Afghanistan since all foreigners were ordered to
leave just days after the September 11 suicide plane attacks -
arrived in Khorum we saw villagers still sifting through the rubble
of houses pulverised by the attack from the sky.
We were besieged by more than 100 students from a nearby
Islamic school, chanting "Down with America," "Long live Islam"
and "We are ready for jihad (holy war)".
It was not easy to tell if the protest was spontaneous or or
chestrated, but it was clear that their feelings were genuine.
"We have brought you here to see the cruelty of the Americans,"
Maulvi Atiqullah, director of the Jalalabad information
department, said before our Taliban-organised trip to Khorum
began.
However, some questions remained unanswered last night.
Reporters saw only a dozen or so freshly dug graves that
officials said included the bodies of children killed in the raid.
What happened to the other bodies which officials say they have
recovered is unclear, but Muslims generally observe Koranic
requirements that the dead are buried before the next sunset.
Many training bases operated by Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network
were known to have previously been situated around Jalalabad,
although residents of Khorum insisted there were none there
now.
"I ask America not to kill us," said Hussain Khan, who said he
lost four children in the raid and survived only by racing out of
the house when he first heard a plane overhead.
Pentagon officials have said at least one of its bombs had
missed its target since air raids in pursuit of Osama bin Laden
began last week. But that was near Kabul. Washington has so
far declined to comment on reports from Khorum.
· Zeeshan Haider is a Reuters correspondent. His party of
journalists was accompanied by the Taliban to Khorum |
