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Pentagon
Officials Say Innocents Killed In Recent Afghan Raid
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| Afghan
refugee cries beside the shrouded body of his baby son
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By
IOL correspondent in Washington, S.M. Khalid
WASHINGTON,
Feb. 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. military officials
who have requested anonymity said innocent Afghans were killed in a
special forces raid last week on a suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban
compound 60 miles north of Kandhar.
Earlier
this week, General Tommy Franks, commander in chief of U.S. Central
Command, ordered an official investigation into the night raid in
which at least 15 people were killed and 27 others were captured.
One American soldier was slightly wounded in the fighting.
Two
senior officials said Friday that it appears likely that a mix of
Taliban and anti-Taliban fighters were present at the site of the
nighttime raid by U.S. Special Forces soldiers. U.S. intelligence
officers believed it was an Al-Qaeda hideout.
Local
Afghans say some of those killed were anti-Taliban forces loyal to
Hamid Karzai, the head of the interim Afghan government, and that
among those arrested were a police chief, his deputy and members of
a district council. They labeled the raid a “tragic case” of
mistaken identities.
Some
Afghans say Taliban renegades were handing over weapons to Karzai's
government at the raided site. Those Afghans say some pro-Karzai
figures were killed and others - including a police chief, his
deputy and members of a district council - were among those
arrested.
Senior
U.S. military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
Friday that while it does not look like all of those killed and
captured were friendly to the new government, some probably were.
One
official said it seemed likely that the killed and captured were a
mixture of Afghans loyal to Karzai - ''criminals'' not
necessarily associated with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda and some Taliban
figures.
U.S.
officials have said that if innocents are among the 27 captives,
they will be released. All are being held for questioning in a
detention facility at the Kandahar airport.
The
raid was one among a series carried out by U.S. Special Forces -
sometimes in tandem with Afghan forces - to extinguish pockets of
Taliban and Al-Qaeda resistance.
Pentagon
officials conceded that shifting loyalties on the ground in
Afghanistan have made it harder to distinguish between allies and
enemies.
General
Richard Myers, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced the
start of a probe at a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, January
30, 2002.
Secretary
of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld publicly conceded that it is difficult
in some cases for the American military to distinguish friend from
foe.
"It's
perfectly possible to go in, get shot at, shoot back, and end up
having someone say that ‘those people were Taliban' and somebody
else say that ‘those people were people we were engaging in our
local government,' and both can be true,'' Rumsfeld said.
On
Monday, January 28, however, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs, Rear
Admiral John Stufflebeem, said, "It just wasn't clear whom
exactly we were dealing with.”
Nonetheless,
Stufflebeem said then that Franks was "confident in the
intelligence derived as to what this appeared to be” - an enemy
outpost and a legitimate target.
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