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Saturday, February 23, 2002
Xinhuanet

WASHINGTON
The Pentagon has acknowledged that the U.S. special forces mistakenly killed 16 Afghan villagers in a commando raid of the mountainous areas north of Afghan city Kandahar last month, The Washington Post reported

Friday.
Addressing a regular briefing here Thursday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the people killed were not members of the Taliban or al-Qaeda as originally reported. The Pentagon came to the conclusion after an official investigation into the incident.

The department has earlier released 27 Afghans captured by the U.S. commandos in the action taken on January 23. The U.S. had alleged that those killed and captured were members of the Taliban or al-Qaeda. But the Afghan interim government argued that the U.S. troops had attacked the wrong targets.

While admitting the mistakes, Rumsfeld argued that the U.S. forces returned fire in self-defense only after the Afghans shot first.

"I think it's just a fact that circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan are difficult. It's untidy," he said.

The secretary did not apologize for the mistakes as he promised shortly after the controversy surfaced.
(More: Xinhuanet News Source)
2002 © Xinhuanet.

In reality, the Pentagon admitted they moved in on foot against 2 close compounds. There was enough doubt to make the assault a foot approach rather than an obliterating airstrike. As the SF teams approached their objectives, they were fired upon. This prompted a return fire response from both teams, resulting in a total of 16 Afghani national fatalities, with 2 at one compound and 14 at the other. It was later determined that neither compound was associated with al Qua’ida.

The moral of this story is:
If you should find yourself in a war-torn country and uniformed liberators are approaching your compound, put aside your weapons and greet them as liberators.

Dan