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The USA's 7-hour bombing "mistake"
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Sunday December 23 3:47 PM ET (via Yahoo)
Afghan Elder Warns Karzai Over Convoy Bombing
By Sadaqat Jan
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - As wounded from a convoy of guests to the
inauguration of Afghanistan's rulers recounted what they said was an
attack by U.S. bombers, a tribal elder warned new leader Hamid Karzai
of an uprising if such incidents recurred.
`The bombing was so intense that only the lucky ones could escape,''
Haji Yaqub Khan Tanaiwal, 65, a mujahideen commander told Reuters
from his bed in Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, capital of
Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.
`Every vehicle was hit in the first raid,'' Tanaiwal recalled.
He was one of only 40 survivors in the convoy of about 20 to 25
vehicles carrying 100 people that was bombed by U.S. jets late on
Thursday in what might have been a mistake.
Local Afghans also contested U.S. assertions its planes had attacked
a convoy of al Qaeda leaders near Khost in eastern Afghanistan,
telling Reuters at the scene on Saturday that the dozens of dead were
innocent villagers and tribal elders.
Local Pashtun tribal chieftain Gulabdin said Karzai would face an
armed uprising if there were more U.S. attacks on Khost, the Afghan
Islamic Press (AIP) said.
WARNINGS OF WAR
`If American warplanes make another aggressive attack on Khost, then
we will take armed measures against Karzai's administration,'' the
Pakistan-based AIP quoted Gulabdin as saying.
U.S. officials insisted the convoy had opened fire on U.S. aircraft
just before it was bombed and had been carrying leaders of Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda network.
`I never heard a single shot fired from the convoy,'' he said, adding
that none of the group were members of the fundamentalist Taliban
militia crushed by weeks of U.S. air strikes.
`All in the convoy were supporters of the new administration,'' he
said, describing cars racing for safety, wounded hobbling for cover
under trees and behind rocks during several hours of strikes.
Residents of Asmani Kilai in eastern Paktia province said the
strikes, lasting seven hours from Thursday night, killed 50 to 60
people from a convoy of tribal elders bound for Kabul for the
inauguration on Saturday of Karzai's interim government.
The village, in the Ozi district of Paktia province, sits on barren
hills and its houses were reduced to rubble.
Six wrecked cars, their bodywork riddled with bullets and shrapnel,
stood on the track. Shrapnel and the remains of spent ordnance
littered the ground.
U.S. INVESTIGATION URGED
Former mujahideen unit commander Tanaiwal said he was a supporter of
the United States, and urged it to investigate the attack.
`We support America because America supported our jihad during the
last 20 years,'' he said.
The jets must have been called in by an enemy, he suggested.
`Somebody might have had a personal grudge against someone in the
convoy,'' he said.
`American should investigate the incident and should not rely on
reports by these elements,'' he said, without identifying what
elements may have called in the strikes. `They (the Americans) must
know who gave the report.
The United States has said it is investigating the attack but that
its initial findings were that the dead were members of the ousted
Taliban or fighters from bin Laden's al Qaeda group.
Karzai said he was making checks.
`He is not a Taliban man,'' General Shahnawaz Tanai, who hails from
the same tribe and Tanaiwal, told Reuters.
Tanai was chief of Afghanistan's army under the Soviet-backed
communist government of President Najibullah.
But his close links with a tribal member who was on the other side in
the war underline the complicated and shifting alliances in
Afghanistan that could have resulted in a U.S. mishit.
It is possible that some in the convoy were former Taliban.
Among the dead was believed to be Naeem Kochi, the head of the
Ahmadzai tribe, a man who has changed sides frequently and had been
linked with the Taliban in the past.
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