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Civilian Casualties of U.S. Bombs in Afghanistan Continue to Rise
KABUL, Oct 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An entire Afghani family was killed when a U.S. fighter plane bombed the truck they were riding in while moving their possessions out of the eastern city of Jalalabad, a Taliban official said Thursday.
The incident, which took place Wednesday, was the second of its kind reported by the Taliban in 24 hours, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
On Wednesday, Taliban sources said another family had been killed when the truck they were riding in while fleeing the southern city of Kandahar was bombed.
"I do not know precisely how many people were on the truck but it was reported to me that the whole family has been martyred," Taliban Education Minister, Amir Khan Mutaqqi, told AFP.
Mutaqqi said at least 40 civilians had been killed and more than 80 injured in overnight raids on Kabul, the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the Jalalabad area.
He said 30 of the deaths had been in Kandahar, where Taliban military bases and buildings linked to their leadership have been under ferocious attacks.
At least 10 others have died in Khogiani, 24 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Jalalabad, Mutaqqi said.
He did not know if there had been any casualties in Kabul.
Kandahar has been without power or water for five days as a result of the U.S.-led bombing.
Kabul was also again without power on Thursday. The capital had spent most of Tuesday without electricity after the bombings damaged its main power station on Monday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that on Sunday warplanes began dropping leaflets, which the U.S. hopes will convince the Afghan people that they are not the targets of the ongoing strikes, BBC's online service reported.
One of the leaflets shows a Western soldier shaking hands with a man in traditional Afghan garb, while another gives the frequencies and times of U.S. radio broadcasts.
"I've seen the bodies of women and children pulled out of the rubble of their homes," a shopkeeper from Kandahar said as he arrived in Quetta.
Meanwhile, shops are shutting their doors early in Kabul and petrol is becoming more expensive and in short supply. At a Kabul hospital, doctors said the nightly power cuts were threatening the lives of infants that depend on incubators to survive.
On Thursday, the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television channel aired scenes of houses wiped out by U.S. air strikes on a residential neighborhood in Kabul.
"The planes drop leaflets assuring us and saying America is helping us, then we see this," said a young Afghan man said to an al-Jazeera reporter, pointing to his grandmother's foot - which he just removed from under the rubble.
According to news agencies quoting Taliban sources, more than 400 civilians have been killed and more than 2,000 have been injured since the start of the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan almost two weeks ago.
Earlier on October 10th - the fourth day of the strikes - Koram village was bombarded three times - twice at night and once at dawn - and more than 200 civilians, mostly children and women, were reported dead by Taliban sources.
The U.S. has cast doubt over the figures, but regretted what it called a "mistake", assuring the public that the strikes "are directed to Taliban and bin Laden's camps."
The Pentagon last week admitted that one of its precision-guided missiles landed in a village, killing civilians and razing houses to the ground.
However, civilian casualties continued to increase, amid growing concerns of humanitarian agencies and within global diplomatic and political circles.
International Red Cross officials in Kabul have reported that a compound had been hit during a U.S. air raid on Tuesday.
They said wheat and other humanitarian supplies were destroyed and a local security guard wounded.
With additional reporting by Abdul Latif, IOL correspondent in Afghanistan
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