Fight against terrorism claims civilian lives

By Kathy Gannon
The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan “”mdash; American airstrikes meant to punish
the Taliban spilled over Sunday into residential neighborhoods of
the Afghan capital, killing 13 civilians ““ the second time in
as many days that missiles have accidentally hit homes and killed
residents.

Later Sunday, U.S. jets were back over the skies of the
beleaguered Afghan capital, and strong explosions could be heard in
the direction of the main road from Kabul to the
opposition-controlled Bagram air base.

Weeping families buried their dead hours after the morning
bombardment, apparently aimed at Taliban targets to the north and
east of Kabul. “I have lost all my family. I am
finished,” said a sobbing woman in the Qali Hotair
neighborhood on Kabul’s northern edge.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesmen had no immediate comment on
the latest strikes and civilian casualties involved. It has
stressed repeatedly that civilians are never deliberately
targeted.

Three weeks after the U.S.-led air assault against Afghanistan
began, British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed confidence the
allies would prevail. However, his foreign secretary, Jack Straw,
told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the war could drag on
“indefinitely” and that the coalition was considering a
pause during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins around
Nov. 17.

When asked about a pause in bombing for Ramadan, Pentagon
spokesman Jim Turner pointed to Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld’s comment earlier in the day, that “the
Northern Alliance and the Taliban fought through Ramadan year after
year.”

“There was a Middle East war during Ramadan. There is
nothing in that religion that suggests that conflicts have to stop
during Ramadan,” Rumsfeld said on CNN’s “Late
Edition.”

In neighboring Pakistan, where the government has had to work to
keep a lid on pro-Taliban unrest, there was growing concern over
civilian casualties.

“We feel the military action should possibly be short and
targeted in order to avoid civilian casualties,”
Pakistan’s president Gen. Pervez Musharraf said after meeting
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Pakistan’s government has allied itself with the United
States in the confrontation over Osama bin Laden, chief suspect of
the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.

In a token of that cooperation, Pakistani officials said Sunday
they had turned over to U.S. officials a man wanted in connection
with another bin Laden-linked attack ““ the October 2000
bombing of the USS Cole. The handover of the suspect, a Yemeni
microbiology student, was the first known arrest outside Yemen in
connection with the Cole attack.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, at least 16 Christian worshippers were
killed in the southern town of Behawalpur when attackers suspected
of belonging to a fundamentalist Muslim group sprayed the church
with gunfire.

It was not known if the attack was related to the U.S. air
campaign. But the parish priest, Rev. Rocus Patras, suggested it
was linked to tensions, saying “whenever something happens
with America, they attack Christian churches.”

Pakistan’s main radical Islamic party vowed to step up the
challenge to Musharraf, saying it and other religious groups would
meet Monday to plan a 10-day protest in the capital to topple the
president.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami, said the
protest would involve a march into Islamabad and a sit-in.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, hundreds of armed pro-Taliban Pakistanis
seized a remote northern town Sunday demanding the government stop
supporting the U.S.-led strikes, witnesses said. The rebels, armed
with rocket launchers, Kalashnikov assault rifles, handmade guns
and swords, took over most government offices in Chilas about 200
miles northeast of Peshawar.

In Sunday morning’s airstrikes, witnesses said 10 people
were killed in Kabul’s Qali Hotair neighborhood. An
Associated Press reporter saw six bodies, four of them
children.

A wailing father hugged the dead body of his son, who looked
barely 2. Bereaved women slapped themselves with grief.

Three other people died near an eastern housing complex called
Macroyan, eyewitnesses said.

In Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital, 13-year-old Jawad
lay semi-conscious in his bed, unaware he was the only survivor of
his nine-member family.

A neighbor, Mohammed Razi, whispered and ushered a journalist
out of Jawad’s room, explaining the boy did not know that
everyone else in the house had been killed in the bombardment that
hit the Qali Hotair, his neighborhood.

“He asked me, “˜How is my family?’ I said,
“˜They are all OK. You were walking in your sleep, and you
fell down the well by your house, and I rescued you,”’
Razi whispered.

In the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar, another memorial for
the dead took place Sunday ““ but without the corpse.

The Taliban refused to return the body of Afghan opposition
figure Abdul Haq, executed Friday after he crossed over into
Afghanistan in hopes of drumming up support for the anti-Taliban
cause. The Taliban said they had buried Haq in his home village in
Afghanistan.

The strikes that hit Kabul came only 12 hours after stray bombs
landed Saturday evening behind the rebel military alliance’s
battle lines north of the capital. Areas behind Taliban lines were
also reported hit.

Eight or nine civilians were killed ““ most of them in
alliance-held areas, according to witnesses.

In the opposition-held village of Ghanikheil, villagers said a
20-year-old woman died in the ruins of her mud-brick house, and six
were hurt. Four others were injured in a nearby house, they
said.

“The sound was huge. The plane swooped down ““ I
could hear it dive,” said an eyewitness, Amin Ullah, 70.

Rebels confronting Taliban troops north of the capital had been
complaining publicly that the American airstrikes weren’t
doing enough to advance their cause. It wasn’t known if
Saturday’s heavy raids were in response to that.

The opposition’s spokesman, Abdullah, who uses only one
name, called the damage to the Taliban front lines from
Saturday’s raids significant and said if such heavy
bombardment were routinely employed, “the objective of
eradicating terrorism could be achieved much quicker.”

The civilian deaths, he said, were an unfortunate mistake.