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Afghan Minister Rejects U.S. Report that Justified Deadly American Airstrike
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
(2:20 PM ET)
By Todd Pitman
Associated Press Writer

The investigative report put the blame for the attack on those who fired at U.S. gunship crew. It also said reconnaissance patrols heard gunfire and explosions throughout the day and night, indicating the area "appeared to support enemy military training." Helicopters inserting those patrols also came under fire, the report said. The Uruzgan region is home to the extended families of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, though none of the victims are known to be his relatives.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- AP
The Afghan government rejects the findings of a U.S. military report that cleared an American warplane crew in the deaths of dozens of civilians at a wedding party, but it doesn't plan to press the matter because of its sensitivity, officials said Wednesday.

Tribal Affairs Minister Mohammed Arif Noorzai, who headed a joint Afghan-U.S. team that conducted a separate investigation of the July 1 attack, said the American raid was "a mistake."

"All our people reject this report. Anybody with any common sense would reject this report," he told The Associated Press.

Afghan authorities say 48 civilians were killed and 117 wounded when an Air Force AC-130 gunship strafed five villages in Uruzgan. The dead included 25 members of an extended family celebrating a wedding, the Afghans said.

A summary of the U.S. military inquiry, released Sept. 6, said American authorities confirmed 34 dead and about 50 wounded. The U.S. report acknowledged the dead were civilians, but said the attack was justified because the plane had come under hostile fire.

Afghan officials and survivors, however, say celebrants at a wedding party were firing rifles into the air -- a tradition in Afghanistan -- when the Americans flew over and mistook it for an attack, unleashing a hail of return fire.
(More: New Jersey Online News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

I wonder what the report says...

Some “traditions” simply aren’t worth keeping,
Dan