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Ear to the Ground

Afghan Highway Battle Kills 16 Civilians

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Posted on Mar 4, 2007

An American convoy suffered a militant ambush on a crowded Afghan highway Sunday, after which U.S. forces opened fire. Up to 16 civilians were killed and as many as 34 wounded in the chaos that followed. The U.S. military says it is possible that militants were responsible for the deaths, but one witness said U.S. soldiers fired on his car after he had pulled over to let them through.

A photographer and a videographer from the Associated Press were on the scene, but their images were forcibly deleted by an American soldier.


AP:

JALALABAD, Afghanistan—U.S. troops fleeing a militant ambush opened fire on civilians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence, officials said.

A suicide car bomber hit the American convoy with an explosives-packed minivan, said Noor Agha Zawok, the spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, and militant gunmen then fired from several directions, the U.S. military said. The coalition forces returned fire, the military said.

It was not immediately clear if the Afghans were killed by the militants’ gunfire or that of the U.S. soldiers. One U.S. soldier was injured in the attack, and the military said 16 civilians died and 25 were injured.

Hundreds of Afghans gathered to protest the violence, blocking the road and throwing rocks at police, with some demonstrators shouting “Death to America! Death to Karzai,” a reference to President Hamid Karzai.

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By JAY, April 2, 2007 at 1:15 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

opening fire and killing a banch of civilains in jalalabad really hurt the reputation of the us forces, so now they are really being hated by the people in jalalabad where most of the people think good about american and they did not have any problem with american forces helping their country, but now everything has changed.
us convoys are a big problem for the people now when they are parked on the road no body is allowed to pass by which is ridiculous
thanks

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By Fadel Abdallah, March 4, 2007 at 11:56 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The repeated large number of civilian massacres by American troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan can be explained, in my opinion, by one of the following reasons: (1) either the American troops are so frightened to the point that they don’t distinguish between civilians and militants when a critical situation develops; (2) that they are trained to be trigger-happy, shooting at random at enemy-imagined targets; (3) that they are permanently mentally-disturbed to the point of being unable to function normally in a war zone. Whichever of these three reasons apply, it is a good reason to pull out American soldiers from these war zones, to put an end not only to this savage killing of innocent people, but also for the sanity of the soldiers who survive these terrible conditions.

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By Quy Tran, March 4, 2007 at 3:25 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The innocent people have paid their democracy with bloods. Viva Bush/Cheney administration !

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By Dale Headley, March 4, 2007 at 9:50 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The Taliban resurgence is starting to use the same tactics as the insurgents in Iraq.  And it’s working: the killing and wounding of so many civilians by “fleeing” American soldiers will only serve to recruit more Afghanis to join the uprising.  Pretty soon you won’t be able to tell the difference between what is going on in the two countries.  It is perhaps ironic that those countries are separated by - guess who - Iran.  All George Bush needs to do now is realize his dream of attacking Iran and he will have a stupendous tiger by the tail which he cannot hope to tame.

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By James Yell, March 4, 2007 at 7:13 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The key phrase in this article is—-US military “forceably deletes” the video made by newsman of the fire fight in which many civilians are killed or wounded. Now if our military wasn’t trying to hide something, why would they force the deletion of the videos?

It shouldn’t shock anyone that in battle many are killed just for being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. It is this fact among others why we should not be in other people’s countries, unless they are a clear and present danger to this country. In the case of Afghanistan we actually came in to a situation where many were glad to see us, but then Bush/Cheney had to make a totally unwarrented incursion into Iraq to steal oil and prove their “machisimo” with the result that any opportunity to build a stable government in Afghanistan was thrown away.

Now we have the military acting arrogant and needlessly defensive against the newsman.

Bush/Cheney have the reverse Midas touch, everything they touch turns to failure, murder and destruction. Don’t any of the neocons think about how they would feel if their parents were gunned down by a foreign military on I-70? Bring the troops home. It will take decades to straighten out the mess that Bush/Cheney have made of the military. We may never be able to apologize enough for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield lies that got us into this double bind. There is no honor in this for our country.

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