Afghan leader demands airstrikes end

9 May 2009, 9:50 am   -   Source: AFP
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US investigators are due to release their findings on the civilian deaths (Getty)

US investigators are due to release their findings on the civilian deaths (Getty)

Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded an end to US air strikes, which he said killed as many as 130 civilians and were infuriating the public.

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded an end to US air strikes, which he said killed as many as 130 civilians and were infuriating the public.

As US and Afghan investigators prepared to release findings into the bloodshed, Karzai categorically rejected US military suggestions that Taliban insurgents rather than bombings may have been to blame.

"Airstrikes are not acceptable," Karzai told CNN on a visit to Washington.

"We believe strongly that airstrikes are not an effective way of fighting terrorism, that airstrikes rather cause civilian casualties," he said.

Karzai talks tough after US trip

Karzai -- who faces elections in August -- talked tough at the end of a trip to the United States that had been meant to build support for the fight Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists across Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In talks with Karzai, US President Barack Obama pledged to be more careful to avoid killing civilians and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced regret for the deaths.

Karzai held three-way talks with Obama and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who has been pushing unsuccessfully for an end to US drone attacks inside his country said to have killed top militants but also civilians.

US military say figures were ‘grossly exaggerated’

There has been no admission from the US military that it killed civilians in the strikes -- which were called in by Afghan forces under attack by Taliban insurgents in the western province of Farah overnight Monday to Tuesday.

Afghan police have told AFP that more than 100 people were killed, about 25 to 30 of them insurgents and the remainder civilians, including elderly people and children.

The US military said that the figure was "grossly exaggerated" but did not offer a figure. US and Afghan teams were expected to announce findings from their investigation on Saturday.

"There were civilian casualties no doubt," said Colonel Greg Julian, US military spokesman in Kabul.

"But the conclusion from the investigation has not been reached, and it's inappropriate to indicate one way or the other how they were caused."

One of the issues being looked into was whether the Taliban had caused the civilian casualties by throwing grenades among villagers, he said.

Karzai dismissed the possibility and said the toll could be even higher than 100.

"I got definitive word from the government this morning that there were more than 100 casualties -- nearly 125 to 130 civilians lost. Deaths -- children, women and men -- and it was done by the bombings," Karzai said.

In a separate interview with US network NBC to be broadcast Sunday, Karzai said that villages "are not where the terrorists are."

"Civilian casualties are undermining support in the Afghan people, for the war on terrorism, and for relations with America. How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?" Karzai said.

The international forces in Afghanistan say they take extreme care to avoid harming civilians, aware it does enormous damage to their efforts to win ordinary people over to their efforts against the Taliban.

‘Death to America’ protests

On Thursday hundreds of Farah protesters chanted "Death to America" and demanded that US troops leave Afghanistan because they were harming civilians, witnesses said.

The military accuses the insurgents of deliberately using civilian positions as cover.

"When the insurgents use civilians as human shields and fire upon coalition force, there is a possibility of civilian casualties and we do everything we can to avoid that," Julian told AFP.

In a vitriolic nearly 600-word statement posted on its website and addressed to the nation, the Taliban charged that foreign troops were killing civilians deliberately to make them give up their "resistance".

It warned that "shedding the blood of one innocent Afghan will in fact lead to the opening of a new invincible trench of revenge against the infidel aggressors."

Obama has made fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan a top priority of his young presidency. Military operations started in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

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