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Strategies & Market Trends : Terrorism attack on the USA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: A. Geiche who wrote (21)	11/3/2001 3:02:06 AM
From: A. Geiche	Respond to of 39

Dozens massacred in village 'with no military targets' INDEPENDENT.CO.UK NEWS War on Terrorism: Air Attacks By Andrew Gumbel 03 November 2001 Western journalists and human rights organisations published the clearest evidence yet of mass civilian casualties caused by the American bombing campaign yesterday. At least 25 people, and possibly as many as 35, were killed on the night of 22 October in Chowkar-Karez, a small village 25 miles north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, according to reports based on the accounts of eyewitnesses in the village and survivors ferried to hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta. The Pentagon has confirmed that an AC-130 Spectre gunship attacked the village. According to the villagers, however, there were several aircraft, not just one. Explosions from the attack, they reported, pulverised the mud walls of houses and gouged craters 15 feet deep in the ground. The planes then returned and opened fire on terrified villagers running through the streets, causing the worst of the casualties. According to Human Rights Watch, the first organisation to publish the eyewitness accounts, the villagers were unanimous in saying no relevant target was in the area. "If there were military targets in the area, we'd like to know what they were," said Sidney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "The Pentagon has got to do more to avoid these deaths." A spokesman for the US military insisted the village was a legitimate target. "There was a positively identified Taliban encampment, which included al-Qa'ida collaborators, in the vicinity of Chowkar that was struck in October," the Pentagon official told The Washington Post. "The encampment was fully developed and was a legitimate military target under the law of armed conflict." Evidence unearthed by Western journalists who visited the village on Thursday, however, suggested the attack might just as easily have been the result of a terrible mistake. A Kandahar man identifying himself only as Mehmood told The New York Times that he had brought a large number of relatives to Chowkar-Karez in the belief that they would be safer there than in Kandahar. The line of cars coming into the village carrying them might have been mistaken for a Taliban military convoy, he suggested. "I brought my family here for safety, and now there are 19 dead, including my wife, my two children, my brother, sister, sister-in-law, nieces, nephews and my uncle," Mehmood said. Human Rights Watch noted that in previous cases it had investigated, ordinary Afghans were quick to identify potential targets in the area. "It is impossible for [us] to verify independently whether Taliban or al-Qa'ida military targets existed in the area of Chowkar-Karez village, but the consistent statements of all witnesses and survivors that there were none is notable," the organisation said. Visiting journalists counted 18 fresh graves but were told the villagers had not been able to sort out the many severed limbs and body parts to give each person their own final resting place. "As we buried the dead, the planes came again," said an old farmer called Mangal, who claimed to have lost 30 relatives including 12 women and 14 children. "We had to work quickly. Not everyone got their own grave." The United States has faced growing criticism for the civilian casualties of the bombing campaign, with many political analysts fearing that reports such as those from Chowkar-Karez will bolster support for the Taliban in the Islamic world and destabilise the friendly government in Pakistan. >< news.independent.co.uk

To: A. Geiche who wrote (21)	11/3/2001 3:09:36 AM
From: A. Geiche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39

Key tribal opponent hunted by Taliban Luke Harding in Pakistan Friday November 2, 2001 The Guardian Taliban troops claimed last night that they were closing in on a key opposition tribal leader who had entered the country on a secret pro-US mission. A week after executing Abdul Haq, the senior Afghan opposition commander, the Taliban said they are now on the brink of capturing Hamid Karzai, a supporter of Afghanistan's former king Zahir Shah. They are pursuing him in the mountains of Oruzgan province, according to the news agency Afghan Islamic Press. The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, last night claimed that four American helicopters had mounted a desperate but futile attempt to rescue Mr Karzai and others with him after Taliban soldiers attacked their hideout in Dehrawad district in the province. "The leader of the group is Hamid Karzai," the ambassador declared. "The group has gone into the mountains, and the Taliban are still following them." Mr Karzai, the Quetta-based leader of the Popolzai tribe in southern Afghanistan, was rumoured to have entered the country two weeks ago. His mission has not been revealed, but there seems little doubt that he was trying to encourage his followers to rise up against the Taliban and support a new government under the deposed king. A tribal leader like Mr Karzai is essential to Washington's increasingly frustrated bid to create a post-Taliban administration because he belongs to the dominant Pashtun ethnic majority, from which the Taliban are almost exclusively drawn. The opposition Northern Alliance is made up of minority Tajiks and Uzbeks. He slipped into Afghanistan before the Taliban captured Haq last Friday. Taliban troops ambushed Haq, together with his nephew and several other followers near Jalalabad. After an abortive attempt by the US to rescue him, he was convicted of treason and hanged. Mr Karzai can expect similar treatment if captured. The second execution of an anti-Taliban leader within a week would leave the White House's floundering attempts to create a broad-based government in Afghanistan in disarray. Haq and Mr Karzai are the only two significant Afghan tribal leaders to have publicly embraced the US's anti-Taliban project. In Quetta, Mr Karzai's brother, Ahmed, last night confirmed that a gun battle with Taliban fighters had taken place, but he claimed that his brother was safe. He refused to give more details. The BBC reported last night that Mr Karzai had telephoned them to say he was safe and well. He said he had been surrounded by Taliban forces, but had managed to fight them off. He claimed to have recruited another Pashtun tribal leader, Mahalem Abdul Ghader, who also spoke to the BBC, saying he his men had fought Taliban troops earlier in the day. A close aide of the exiled 87-year-old king, Zamai Rassoul, said last night in Rome that he had no information about an attack on Mr Karzai or a US helicopter attempt to rescue him. But he added: "We know that he is safe. If he is stranded in Oruzgan province, his chances of escape appear slim. The remote region is a Taliban stronghold, and is where the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, grew up. Osama bin Laden is also known to have a small base in Oruzgan, where he has hidden in the past. >< guardian.co.uk