A rain of bombs

A U.S. platoon gets ready to shell suspected rebel hideouts in Afghanistan's Khakeran valley in June 2005. - TOMAS MUNITA/AP

IN the pre-dawn hours of February 11, 2003, a United States Special Forces convoy making its way up an isolated valley near the village of Baghran was hit with machine-gun and rifle fire from five persons located on two ridges above the valley.1 U.S. Colonel King said close air support was called in, Dutch and Norwegian F-16s dropped five GBU-12 500-pound laser-guided bombs (made by Lockheed Martin) and more than 100 rounds of 20 mm ammunition was fired upon `targets'.2

Later that day, 25 fighters armed with RPG-7s and AK-47s were spotted by U.S. forces. As is customary, the Special Forces called in air support and four days of intermittent U.S., Danish and Norwegian bombing, as well as searches of small villages, followed.

On February 11, B-1s and B-52s dropped nearly twenty 2,000-pound bombs and Danish F-16s dropped 500 pound GBU-12 bombs on the area around Baghran village. The planes kept up the bombing for eight hours that day.3 Less than 48 hours after the initial skirmish, two reporters who have excelled in independent reporting from Afghanistan - Carlotta Gall of The New York Times and Rory McCarthy of The Guardian - filed stories citing Afghan officials in the Baghran area who said at least 17 civilians had been killed in the U.S., Danish and Norwegian onslaught.4 An aide to the Governor of Helmand province said villagers had complained to the provincial authorities about the civilian deaths which included those of women and children.

Reuters quoted a local witness as saying that he had seen women and children killed by the bombing lying in a riverbed.5 A report on February 13 said that as many as 30 Afghan villagers might have been killed and scores injured in the intense U.S. and allied bombing.6 A British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent in Kandahar spoke to eyewitnesses who said 13 people had been killed after U.S. planes bombed a civilian area, not caves, in the Baghran valley.7 On February 12, a B-52 dropped another 2,000-pound JDAM bomb and an AC-130 gunship fired ten 105mm cannon rounds, reportedly into the ridges and caves.8 A villager from Shina Keli said that he had seen bodies of eight people, all members of one family, who he said had died in the February 12 air attack carried out by a B-52 bomber and an AC-130 gunship.9

Colonel King, on the other hand, affirmed that the U.S. bombing had not killed noncombatants.10 The Karzai puppet regime was informed on February 11 by the Helmand authorities of the bombing. Its response was that it would prefer that no bombing should take place during the three-day Islamic holiday which began on that day.11

MARC W. HEROLD

2. "U.S. Bombers Pound Taliban Targets", Reuters (February 12, 2003 at 4:39 EST)

3. Carlotta Gall, "U.S. Bombs Kill at Least 17 Civilians, Afghans Say," New York Times (February 13, 2003)

4. Gall, op. cit., and Rory McCarthy, "17 Afghan Villagers `Killed in American Bombing Raids'", The Guardian (February 13, 2003)

5. Gall, op. cit.

6. "Up to 30 Afghans Killed by Allied Bombing", The Guardian (February 12, 2003)

7. "U.S. Denies Afghan Civilian Deaths", BBC News (February 13, 2003 at 12:55 GMT)

8. Todd Pitman, "U.S. Forces Bomb Afghan Caves", Associated Press (February 13, 2003 at 3:27 AM PST)

9. Mirwais Afghan, "Afghans Say More Civilians Die in U.S.-led Raids", Reuters (February 13, 2003 at 11:43 AM ET)

10. "L'armee americaine dement toute perte civile en Afghanistan", Agence France-Presse (February 13, 2003 at 11:04)

11. McCarthy, op.cit.