12Dec03-Pamela Constable-Deadly U.S. Raid Leaves Some Afghans Bewildered - Villagers Say Target Was Not a Terrorist
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 12, 2003; Page A39
NARAI KALAI, Afghanistan, Dec. 11 -- The village, surrounded by bleak winter fields, was deserted Thursday. A dozen U.S. soldiers were busy inside a mud compound; next to it was another farmhouse with one mud wall smashed to rubble. On a frozen slope nearby, eight new graves, marked with jagged rocks, were already partly covered by snow.
Sometime between midnight and dawn on Dec. 5, U.S. warplanes and ground forces attacked this mud-walled hamlet in eastern Paktia province, searching for a arsenal of weapons, U.S. military officials said Wednesday. In the rain of rockets and gunfire, an earthen wall collapsed on a sleeping family, killing both parents and their six young children.
According to U.S. officials, the raid -- one of two military attacks that have killed a total of 16 Afghan civilians in the last week -- was aimed at an Islamic extremist identified as Mullah Jalani, who owned the compound. The officials said U.S. troops later found thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside, along with the bodies of the victims.
Residents described Akhtar Mahmad Jalani as a controversial local tribal and militia leader who had crossed swords with provincial officials and changed sides several times in the region's seesawing political struggles. Provincial sources said he had supported the Taliban at one time and was known as a bully who used threats of force in tribal disputes.
But most people interviewed insisted that Jalani was neither a terrorist nor a threat to the government, and some professed outrage and shock at the U.S. attack. They noted that, until recently, Jalani had served as district commissioner and was also a leader of the local tribal council.
Several residents said Jalani had supported the U.S. military campaign and met often with U.S. and Afghan troops based in Gardez, the provincial capital 20 miles west of here.
"This was always the safest place for Americans, and there has never been a single incident in our district," said Hairan, 29, a truck driver. "Everyone knew Jalani, and the day before this happened the new district chief came to have tea with him. We are amazed that they would bomb his house."
Naser Gul, 25, a brother of the man who was killed with his family in the attack, said the victims were sleeping when the sound of planes overhead woke them about 3 a.m. Gul said he ran outside, but the rest of the family was buried and died. He said the family, originally from Logar province, was visiting as guests of the Tutakhel tribe, which controls the district.
Gul identified the dead as Ikhtar Gul, 35, a farmer; Khela, his wife; four daughters, Ahmad Khela, Daulat Zai, Anara and Kadran; and two sons, Asif and Nematullah. He said the children's ages ranged from 1 to 12.
Their deaths came to light just days after a U.S. air assault on a village in neighboring province of Ghazni killed nine children and one adult. That raid was also aimed at an alleged Islamic extremist, Mullah Wazir, who apparently had already left the area.
Both cases have drawn strong statements of concern and criticism from U.N. officials, who are overseeing Afghanistan's difficult transition to democracy. They warned that such incidents could alienate Afghan civilians from the international community.
U.S. military officials have apologized for the deaths in Ghazni, calling the episode a "tragic mistake" and saying they had no indication that civilians were in the immediate area. They have promised to investigate the incident in an effort to make sure similar mistakes do not occur in the future.
In the Paktia incident, however, U.S. officials have continued to strongly defend their actions. Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, the U.S. military spokesman at Bagram air base, said Wednesday that the raid netted a significant arsenal. He also said that if civilians "surround themselves" with weaponry in a compound used by a terrorist, "we are not completely responsible for the consequences."
At a briefing Thursday, Hilferty again defended the high-powered military raid and added more detail to support it, saying that when U.S. troops attacked, they were met with heavy gunfire from inside the farmhouse.
"Certainly, we followed the law of proportionality in this compound," Hilferty said. "From the compound, they were shooting at us with machine guns. Jalani has more ammunition at his house than the coalition keeps at Bagram." Hilferty said the compound contained hundreds of 107mm rockets, mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades, antitank and antipersonnel mines and howitzers.
Hilferty further identified Jalani as a suspected associate of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former Afghan prime minister who is believed to have formed an alliance with revived Taliban forces against the current U.S.-backed government.
Some residents and tribal leaders scoffed at such descriptions, saying Jalani had always strongly opposed the Taliban and had frequent dealings with U.S. military forces here.
No one in the area Thursday was able to say where Jalani is now.
Several residents said they thought he might have been killed in the raid but that they had not been allowed to enter the compound except to retrieve and bury the dead.
Between nine and 14 village men were detained by U.S. forces, but officials said Jalani was not among them. Sources in the province said it had been variously reported that Jalani escaped from his compound disguised in a woman's veil or had been in Pakistan at the time of the attack.
"We don't know if Hajji Jalani is alive or dead, and we don't understand the reason for this disaster," said Mahmad Yusuf, a retired army colonel and tribal leader from the district. "If he committed a crime, he should be brought to justice, but the Americans killed innocent people for nothing, and this is a very bad work."
U.S. Special Forces troops in the village Thursday refused to speak to a reporter and said she should leave the area. But several sources in Paktia gave accounts of the attack that cast the U.S. actions in a favorable light.
"The Americans surrounded the compound Friday night and gave everyone a chance to come out. The women and children eventually left, and the bombing did not start until several hours later," said a knowledgeable source in Gardez.
In the past several months, Taliban fighters and other armed guerrillas have staged numerous violent attacks in Afghanistan's southeastern provinces bordering Pakistan. A French U.N. worker was shot to death in Ghazni province, three foreign highway workers -- a Turk and two Indians -- were kidnapped, and a bomb wounded 20 people in downtown Kandahar.
The attacks have already led to cutbacks in many foreign aid projects and have threatened to disrupt a national constitutional assembly due to begin Saturday in Kabul.
Reuters reported from Bagram air base:
Nearly a week into what was described as the biggest ground operation in Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown in late 2001, thousands of U.S. soldiers have so far failed to engage any Taliban or allied militants, the army said Thursday.
Hilferty said soldiers of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment who helicoptered into Paktia on Monday as part of Operation Avalanche had yet to make contact with the enemy. But he said they had conducted patrols and cave searches over a 40-square-mile area as part of the offensive.
"The fact that we did not hit the jackpot here is not indicative that the air assault was not successful," he said.
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