late Tuesday night, May 8, 2007 – May 11, 2007

 

(photo of injured victims in Sangin District) 

 

in the Garmawa area north of Sangin in Helmand Province. In what must surely be labeled a massacre, some 50-80 civilians were killed in a string of small villages including Sarwan Qala and Sra Ghar. An occupation force convoy was attacked in the afternoon of May 8^th. Later U.S. Special Forces called-in close in support. US/NATO war planes then bombed houses where they believed Taliban were hiding. Even the puppet governor of Helmand Province, Assadullh Wafa, admitted that 21 civilians had died in the bombing (a figure widely cited by the Associated Press which routinely and uncritically publishes accounts by the U.S. military and the Kabul client regime). Others put the deaths much higher. A resident of the bombed area, Mohammad Asif, said five homes in the village of Soro were bombed, killing 38 and injuring more than 20. "Foreign troops are killing Afghans every day, but our government has closed its eyes and does not see our casualties," local resident Haji Ibrahim said. Residents disputed that Taliban fighters were involved. "There were no Taliban in our area," Mohammad Rahim, a resident of Sangin, told Reuters by phone, adding he had seen 24 bodies in three houses. The village of Sarwan Qala was demolished. The photo shows one of the many civilians injured. Carlotta Gall, one of the few independent news reporters, wrote,

Hajji Mahmud, a shopkeeper who lives near Sarwan Qala, said he was one of those who brought the bodies and said 56 people had been killed, most of them women and children. “Three houses were completely destroyed,” he said in a telephone interview. “One of the houses belonged to Faizullah. The family of seven is dead, the whole family.” “Still now they are digging out bodies from the rubble,” he said. A resident of the bombed village, Abdul Nasir, who was away from the village on Tuesday night, said more than 60 people had been killed and many more wounded. “It was around 4 p.m. when the foreign vehicles came through on the main road,” he said. “The Taliban shot at them and they turned back. Then airplanes came and bombed the village at 10 p.m.,” he said. The Taliban were in the village during the day but left later and were not in the village at the time of the bombing, he said.

A parliamentarian from Sangin said he had been told 100 people were dead and wounded. “It was a savage bombing which destroyed over 40 houses and killed and wounded 100 civilians, kids and women,” said Amer Dad Mohammad, vowing to bring the issue before the national parliament. Mohammad said 14 people from a single family were among the dead. “How long can this disaster of continued civilians casualties continue?” he said. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, confirmed that Taliban fighters had fired on the military convoy but said they had left the village long before the bombing. He denied that any Taliban were killed in the air strikes. 

 

On May 11^th, the village of Sra Ghar was hit my US/NATO bombs. British occupation forces at Camp Robinson received 18 injured civilians. Mohammadullah, 24, brought his son, Bashir Ahmed, 2 (photo above showing Bashir Ahmed in the arms of his grandfather, Hajji Mir Gul – photo by Joao Silva for the New York Times), to the British base seeking help. Bashir and his sister, Muzlifa, 7, bore terrible shrapnel wounds. Mohammadullah said the US/NATO bombing killed 6 members of the family and wounded five. His wife lost an arm; the children’s grandmother was killed. He said 20 people had died in the airstrikes (after the Taliban had left the village). Mohammadullah said that after the deadly bombing raid the villagers were so angered that most of the men who survived went off to join the resistance. Mahmadullah, a trained mullah from the village of Kutaizi, added, “The Americans are killing and destroying a village in pursuit of one person [Osama bin Laden]. So now we have understood that the Americans are a curse on us, and they are here to destroy Afghanistan. They can tell the difference between men and women, children and animals, but they are just killing everyone….First they kill me and then rebuild my house. What is the point when I am dead and my son is dead? This is not any worth to us.”

Angry villagers took 12 dead and 25 wounded to the gates of the British occupation base, FOB Robinson. They complained bitterly that a cluster of villages about 20 kms north of the district center had been bombed during Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Graeme Smith of the Globe & Mail took photos of some of the victims:

As usual as part of news management, Western occupation forces and their Afghan satraps blocked all access to the stricken area (thereby preventing independent access to evidence and gaining time to piece together an “official account,” i.e. lie). A U.S. military (propaganda) spokesman, a Major William Mitchell, said only militants had been killed, a claim which could not be independently verified. Later when this lie proved untenable, the occupation forces fell back upon the figures cited by the puppet governor.

 

“Precisely killed” by US/NATO close air support called-in by U.S. Special Forces