ASMANI KILAI, Afghanistan (Reuters)
- Local Afghans contested U.S.
assertions that its planes had
attacked a convoy of al Qaeda
leaders, telling Reuters at the scene
on Saturday the dozens of dead were
innocent villagers and tribal elders.
Residents of Asmani Kilai in eastern Paktia province said the
strikes, lasting seven hours from Thursday night into Friday,
killed 50 to 60 people and destroyed 15 vehicles from a
convoy of tribal elders bound for Kabul for the inauguration on
Saturday of the interim government led by Hamid Karzai.
About 10 houses and a mosque were also destroyed and
several villagers not with the convoy were also killed, they
said.
However, U.S. officials insisted the convoy had opened fire on
U.S. aircraft just before it was bombed and had been carrying
leaders of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Earlier reports said 65 people were killed.
"The people who got hit were going to congratulate Karzai on
the transfer of power," villager Khodai Noor told Reuters
Television in the first account of the bombing from the scene.
"There are no members of al Qaeda or supporters of bin Laden
here," he added, suggesting a local warlord might deliberately
have misinformed U.S. forces about the convoy to settle a
score.
A further 15 people were wounded and had been taken to a
hospital six hours drive away near the border with Pakistan,
the villagers said. The bodies of those killed were swiftly
removed in line with Islamic custom for burial by relatives,
they said.
The United States has said it is investigating the attack but
that its initial findings were that the dead were members of
the ousted Taliban or fighters from bin Laden's al Qaeda
group.
"I will tell you, having been in touch with my headquarters,
that at this point we believe it was a good target," U.S.
General Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in the
region, told reporters in Kabul after Karzai was sworn in.
In the United States, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command
told Reuters in response to the accounts from Asmani Kilai:
"We confirm again that the convoy was a military target."
But a Pentagon spokesman later told Reuters U.S. military
officials had reached the spot to look into the villagers'
claims: "I would not call it an investigation. It is part of a
process we always carry out when there are reports like this."
In Kabul, Franks said he had also received reports that a U.S.
aircraft had been fired on from the convoy.
Villagers contested that account, saying the convoy had set
out for the Afghan capital from the town of Khost with tribal
elders who were not carrying weapons.
DOUBLE-CROSSED?
Villager Noor alleged the convoy had been diverted from its
intended route by a hostile local commander, whom he named
as Pacha Khan. He alleged that Khan had then told the
Americans that the vehicles were carrying al Qaeda members.
The village, in the Ozi district of Paktia province, sits on
barren hills and its houses were reduced to rubble.
Six wrecked cars, their bodywork riddled with bullets and
shrapnel, stood on the track. Shrapnel and the remains of
spent ordnance littered the dirt.
The villagers said more vehicles had been hit further along the
route in air strikes they said occurred between 9.00 p.m. on
Thursday and 4.00 a.m. on Friday.
"Why is this tyranny happening to us?" asked Haji Khyal Khan,
who said five members of his family had been killed.
Locals picked through the rubble of their homes retrieving
what possessions they could, including a tattered carpet.
"There were no terrorists. They destroyed a whole village and
we've lost everything," said villager Agha Mohammad.
Karzai, speaking at a news conference in Kabul before the
villagers' accounts emerged, said he would check reports of
the attack but did not believe tribal chiefs had been bombed.
"I will definitely check that with our American friends, but I
don't think it's true because the first information I got was
there was no such bombing," he said. "If they were al Qaeda
members then they were not tribal chiefs."
One U.S. embassy official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said: "We apparently had evidence that this
convoy had al Qaeda forces. We circled the convoy.
"I'm told by Centcom (Central Command) that we were fired
on twice by the convoy using anti-aircraft missiles, which
they took as a hostile act and proceeded to attack the
convoy."
CALL FOR INQUIRY
But Abdullah Jan, a spokesman for the shura (council) of the
Nayazain tribe in Khost, urged Karzai to order an inquiry, the
private, Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.
The victims included Maulvi Mian Jan who was traveling to
Kabul at Karzai's invitation, AIP quoted Jan as saying.
"He was a tribal chief. There was no Talib nor any al Qaeda
fighter in our convoy. Why was it bombed?" he told AIP.
AIP said the dead included tribal elders and former mujahideen
commanders. It said one of the dead was "commander"
Mohammad Ibrahim, a brother of well-known former
mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Haqqani fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
in the 1980s but switched sides to become the tribal affairs
minister in the Taliban government.
A local resident told the BBC that the dead included Naeem
Kochi, head of the Ahmadzai tribe, a man who has changed
sides frequently and had been linked with the Taliban in the
past. (With additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider)
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