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Afghan Regime Split Over U.S. Bombing Raids
Tuesday July 23, 2002
By Rory McCarthy
The Guardian

Shortly after the July 1 attack Mr Karzai summoned US military chiefs to insist that "all necessary measures" were taken to prevent civilian deaths in future. Now, however, he appears to have tempered his anger and has defended US military tactics. But others in the government are still furious. At the weekend Dr Abdullah said for the first time that Afghan officials wanted a say in the conduct of future raids.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- GN
US military investigators are to travel to a village in Afghanistan later this week to try to explain why an American AC-130 gunship killed at least 48 civilians in a bombing raid on a wedding party.

About 117 Afghans were injured in the attack on villages near Kakrak in southern Afghanistan earlier this month. US military officials at first refused to apologise for the bombing raid, insisting their pilots were fired at from the ground.

The attack appeared to trigger the first opposition to the US military from within the Kabul regime and has opened a potentially damaging rift between the president, Hamid Karzai, who is a Pashtun, and the powerful Tajik foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah.

US investigators have started questioning servicemen involved in the operation at a military base in Kandahar. The team will travel next to the targeted villages where they will work "for as long as it takes" to find out what happened on the night of the raid, Colonel Roger King, a US military spokesman, said yesterday.

"War is not a precise art," Col King said, admitting that US military planners frequently had to rely on incomplete intelligence from local Afghan commanders.
(More: Guardian.co.uk News Source)
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Dan