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Probe Rejects Afghan Death Claims

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The New York Times

Published: September 3, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - An American military investigation concluded Tuesday that five to seven civilians and 30 to 35 Taliban were killed in an airstrike operation in western Afghanistan last month, far lower than the figure of 90 civilians that Afghan and United Nations officials found in preliminary investigations.

Two civilians also were wounded, the American command said in a statement.

The American military investigation was a standard internal one and comes ahead of a joint investigation the military has agreed to conduct with the United Nations and the Afghan government to try and reconcile the vastly differing accounts of what happened and how many people died.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the operation at the time and dismissed two Afghan commanders for what he called dereliction of duty and concealing the truth, after a government delegation to the area concluded large numbers of women and children died.

The U.N. special representative in Afghanistan also expressed grave concern at the civilian casualties and said a human rights team had found convincing evidence that 90 people had been killed, 60 of them children. Since then the United Nations has refused further comment pending the conclusion of investigations.

The American military command, which originally had reported a successful operation that killed 25 militants, then announced it was opening an investigation into the event.

The operation was a planned offensive conducted in the early hours of Aug. 22 in the village of Azizabad, in Herat province, and Afghan and American forces came under fire as they approached their objective, the statement said.

The intensity of the fire on them justified using small-arms and close air support, it said.

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