in Afghanistan said on Wednesday that US-led airstrikes against militants had killed 100 people, most of them civilians, in one of the deadliest such attacks in nearly eight years. The US military opened an investigation into the operation in the remote western province of Farah, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered his government to probe reports of high civilian casualties.“During the aerial bombardment and ground operations, more than 100 people have died,†western Afghanistan police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi told AFP, basing his information on reports from police, the Red Cross and locals.
“Twenty-five to 30 of them are Taliban, including from Chechnya and Pakistan, and the rest are civilians including children, women and elderly people,†he said. Teams from the Afghan government, international forces and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would travel to the area to investigate he matter, he added.
Deputy Provincial Governor Mohammad Younus Rasouli said that he had seen the bodies of 20 children brought by villagers to the provincial capital, also called Farah. The clashes and airstrikes were in volatile Bala Buluk, district about 600 kilometres southwest of Kabul.
Provincial Police Chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar also said 100 people had been killed in two villages in the district, at least 30 of them civilians. “Now we are trying to find out how many of them are combatants and how many are civilians,†he said.
Taliban were in control of the area, making it difficult to verify numbers, Farah Province Governor Rohul Amin said. Militants who attacked security forces took shelter in civilian homes, accounting for at least some of the civilian casualties. “Dozens of people were killed, including women and children,†ICRC spokeswoman Jessica Barry told AFP. One of the dead was a community volunteer for the Afghan Red Crescent Society, who was killed along with 13 members of his family, she said. Karzai said in a statement that he would raise the issue with US President Barack Obama when he meets him in Washington later on Wednesday.