Scores killed as US bombs fall on civilians

3 Dec, 2001 03:08 AM5 mins to read

4.00 pm - by RICHARD LLOYD PARRY

JALALABAD - The hunt for Osama bin Laden went tragically wrong for the second time in two days when American bombers killed scores of civilians in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, as well as friendly Mujahedin fighters supporting the battle against al Qaeda.

A senior Mujahedin commander estimated that more than a hundred civilians died in the town of Agam, on top of at least 70 who were killed in air raids the night before. At least eight of yesterday's victims were guards and government officials of the Eastern Shura, the council of anti-Taleban Mujahedin leaders who now control eastern Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Haji Zaman Gamsharik, defence chief for the Eastern Shura, inspected the mutilated bodies of seven of his men, one of them a teenager, who died when American bombs struck a district government office in Agam where they were sleeping.

"These are district officials and guards," he said in the mortuary of Jalalabad's Public Health Hospital. "These are the people I sent yesterday, the people in this region do not even have enough food, they are dying with nothing. And this is not just one, two or three people - there are more than a hundred."

Mujahedin commanders were already reeling from the attacks on Friday night and early Saturday when three villages were bombed, killing at least 70, and perhaps as many as 300, civilians in territory controlled by allies of the anti-terrorism coalition.

Some 600 "Arabs" - foreign fighters of al Qaeda - are known to be at large in the Tora Bora area of the White Mountains south of Agam, and there are unconfirmed reports that Osama bin Laden himself may be there. But the weekend attacks suggest either that the US is relying on faulty intelligence, or that it is deliberately sacrificing civilians in order to kill al Qaeda members living among them.

On Saturday, a Pentagon spokesman insisted that the village bombings "just did not happen", but yesterday the coalition press office in the Pakistani capital Islamabad said that it was "investigating" the attack on the government office.

There were pitiful scenes in Jalalabad's hospital yesterday, where 18 new casualties were brought in to join three from the day before. The bombed areas are at least two hours drive along a jarringly bumpy road. Several of the victims had died of their wounds during the journey.

A ten-year-old boy named Noor Mohammed, who was injured on Saturday morning, lay trembling in his bed, covered in bloody bandages. He has lost his right arm, his left hand, and has been blinded in both eyes. In another bed, a 25-year-old man named Sher Pacha described yesterday's attack on the Agam District Centre.

"We were sent by Haji Zaman a few days ago," he said, "and there were about 40 of us sleeping in one of the rooms of the District Centre. I heard the bombs and then I didn't know what was happening. I was lucky because my head was positioned so that the ceiling did not fall on top of it.

"The guards outside yelled for help and people came and four of us were rescued. Then the planes came again, and a second lot of bombs were dropped while they were helping people. Many more died then."

The road to the White Mountains, which passes through Agam, is still considered too dangerous for foreigners to travel and it was impossible yesterday to visit the sites of the various bombings. But all the witnesses agreed that there were no Taleban or Arabs in the town, which has been under Mujahedin control for a fortnight.

"It used to be a centre of the Arabs, but they left that place on the first night of the bombing campaign (7 October), said commander Zaman who is in contact with the American military which has promised winter uniforms and food supplies for the campaign against the Arab base in the Tora Bora cave complex. "There are no Taleban and no Arabs there - they are all hiding in the mountains. This is a mistake."

Other accounts yesterday suggested that there was logic behind some of the bombings. Villagers are reluctant to admit it for fear of inviting further attacks, but it appears that the Arabs of Tora Bora have friends and suppliers in some of the communities.

A villager named Aziz described the destruction of three houses in the Bechira Agam district in which 43 people were killed, with 12 others still unaccounted for in the rubble. At first he insisted that they were all innocent civilians but, when pressed, he admitted that the dead included al Qaeda and Taleban members as well as their families. "They got just the right place," he said, but refused to elaborate further.

Ever since Thursday, when US vice president Dick Cheney said he believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in the White Mountains, American operations in eastern Afghanistan have intensified and the once talkative Mujahedin commanders in Jalalabad have become increasingly reluctant to speak about their plans.

Early yesterday morning two helicopters landed at Jalalabad's airport, the first aircraft to be seen there since it was struck with cruise missiles on the second night of the bombing campaign. Mujahedin guards at the base were told that they belonged to the Afghan Northern Alliance which controls Kabul, but earlier in the day one guard said that they were American helicopters and that they unloaded boxes.

Unconfirmed reports from Washington suggest that as many as 20 members of the US special forces are on the ground in the area south of Jalalabad.

- INDEPENDENT

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