Afghan officials say a NATO airstrike killed eight women and girls who were out gathering firewood before dawn on Sunday in a remote region on the east of the country. The coalition says it believes only insurgents were hit.
Villagers from Laghman province’s Alingar district brought the bodies to the Governor’s office in the provincial capital, said Sarhadi Zewak, a spokesman for the provincial government.
“They were shouting ‘Death to America!’ They were condemning the attack,” Mr. Zewak said.
Seven injured women and children, some of them as young as 10-years-old, were brought to area hospitals for treatment, said provincial health director Latif Qayumi.
NATO forces at first said that about 45 insurgents and no civilians were killed in the attack but spokesman Jamie Graybeal stressed later that they took the charge of civilian deaths seriously and were investigating the allegations. He said, however, that initial reports showed only insurgents were killed in the airstrike.
Airstrikes have been a particularly sensitive issue between the Afghan people who say civilians often end up killed along with or instead of insurgents and NATO forces who maintain that they are a key tactic for going after insurgent leaders.
@Brad: Your comment is completely irrelevant to the topic. This news is about the callousness of US Troopers there who have utter disregard for human life.
Now again on U -turn of US ,who killed Innocent civilians?where is the marine responsible for this killing of Women and children?It is America to reply?What happened the American soldier who had killed more than dozen women earlier?only investigation?This is noting ,but creating hared against US all around the World.Nothing can contain US to escape the scale of Justice from God.
It is almost inconceivable that for the half trillion dollars the US spends on defense each year that we should be losing the war in Afghanistan.
This marks the 11th year we've been embroiled in this conflict. A war, which should have been over in months, not years. Yet here we are, in the longest war in US history being outgunned by a bunch of non professional insurgents with no tanks, no helicopters, no submarines, no jet fighters, no aircraft carriers, no HumveeS, no night vision goggles, no combat boots , no bullet proof vests.
Estimates are that the Taliban have about 25,000 hardened fighters. Against them we have (until recently) 80,000 US troops, 20,000 Nato troops, 200,000 afghan security forces and 100,000 military contractors and support staff. That means we outnumber these fighters by 16 to 1.
Yet for all the troops and all the money and all the technology, we are losing this war....just as the Russians lost 25 years ago.
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