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Afghans Say U.S. Strike Had High Civilian Toll

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The New York Times

Published: August 24, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai on Saturday strongly condemned a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghan civilians - including 50 children - in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing initiatives to prevent such heavy losses of civilian life.
Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.

The U.S. military initially put the number of dead at 30, describing all of those killed Friday in a remote part of Herat province, on Afghanistan's western border, as Taliban militants. On Saturday, U.S. spokesmen said five of the dead were thought to be women or children, and that allegations of a much higher and predominantly civilian death toll would be investigated.

Accounts of the fighting provided by Afghan authorities, human rights groups and the U.S. military have varied widely, and the remoteness of the area made it difficult to determine exactly what happened.

The U.S. military said it staged an airstrike early Friday in the area targeting a senior Taliban commander. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said the aerial bombardment, which it described as happening later in the day, killed 76 civilians, including scores of women and children. An Afghan human rights group Saturday put the total number of dead at 78, after initially compiling a tally of 88.

Information from the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

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