Afghans ready to open graves to prove civil deaths

Afghans ready to open graves to prove civil deaths
by Sharafuddin Sharafiyaar, from Reuters, September 9, 2008.

AZIZABAD, Afghanistan Sept 9 (Reuters) - Relatives of Afghans killed in a U.S.-led coalition raid in western Herat province on Tuesday offered to dig open graves to back up claims of large-scale civilian deaths.

The August 22 air strike in Shindand district has outraged Afghans and opened up a rift between the coalition forces on the one hand and the Afghan government and the U.N. on the other, which both say that more than 90 civilians were killed.

The U.S. military, which earlier disputed that figure, said it would re-investigate after new evidence about civilian casualties in the raid on Azizabad village had emerged.

"We are ready to dig out every grave to show the Americans that civilians including women and children were killed in the air strikes," village elder Gul Ahmad Khan, who said he lost three children in the strike, told Reuters over telephone.

But Khan, who represented the village during President Hamid Karzai's visit last week to commiserate with the families, said the U.S. must first agree it would pull out all its forces from the country, if it was proved that civilians died in the air strike.

"We will welcome them if they visit our bombed village to investigate. But we should have a deal first, if the Americans are proved wrong, then they should leave Afghanistan in shame," he said.

The U.S. military earlier said the raid was targeted at a Taliban commander who was among 30 to 35 militants killed in the strike. It said five to seven civilians were killed.

Villagers said false intelligence about the presence of Taliban in the village had been fed to the coalition forces and have separately urged the Afghan government to punish those responsible.

Khan said he had a cellphone video and pictures showing the bodies of children killed during the strike on a house where a large number of villagers had gathered. At least 60 of the dead were women and children, the Afghan government says.

The New York Times said in a report on Sunday that cellphone videos and other images showed bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque where the strike occurred.

It said its reporter had seen cellphone images shot by a villager of at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries.

Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old, it said.

"Under any shape it occurred, this event must be regarded as the biggest violation by NATO forces in Afghanistan," state-controlled Afghan daily Anis said in an editorial on Tuesday.

"Continued civilian casualties strengthens the cynicism of the public against the government," it said, adding it gave opposition forces a major instrument of propaganda.

More than 500 civilians have been killed during operations by foreign and Afghan forces against the militants so far this year, according to the Afghan government and some aid groups.

Violence is at its highest level in Afghanistan this year since the 201 invasion by U.S.-led coalition forces, with more than 2,500 people killed. (Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Jerry Norton)