News CENTRAL/S. ASIA Dispute over deadly US Afghan raid The US-led international force has come under strong
criticism by the Afghan president [AFP] A claim by US forces in Afghanistan that they killed 15 Taliban fighters in the eastern province of Laghman, has been disputed by village elders. A US statement said on Saturday that soldiers killed the fighters after coming under fire from opposition fighters. But the elders say all those who died were civilians. "The operation in Mehtar Lam District, approximately 60km northeast of Kabul City, targeted a Taliban commander believed to conduct terrorist activities throughout the Kabul, Laghman and Kapisa provinces," a US military statement said. "As coalition forces approached the wanted militant's compound, several groups of armed militants exited their homes and began manoeuvering on the force." Nine fighters were killed by small-arms fire and four killed by "precision close-air support", the statement said, adding that two other fighters were killed during a subsequent serach of the houses in the compound. 'Civilians killed' One of the attackers killed in the initial fight was later identified as female, the US military statement said. But Abdul Rahmzai, head of the provincial council in Laghman, said village elders had told him in the hours after the raid that those killed were civilians. Rahmzai relayed questions from the Associated Press news agency to the village elders directly, who responded by saying that swear on the Quran that all those killed were innocent. They said that women and children were among the dead, and told Rahmzai that they have no link to Taliban fighters. Independent assessment by journalists and human-rights monitors of the competing claims is complicated by the level of danger in the territory to unarmed outsiders.
Competing claims
While Afghan villagers have been accused of inflating civilian death claims to receive more compensation, the US military has in the past been charged with not fully acknowledging the deaths of civilians due to its raids. In the immediate wake of a battle in August in the village of Azizabad, the US military said no civilians were killed. Eventually a US investigation found that 33 civilians had been killed in that raid. The Afghan government and the UN said that 90 civilians died in the incident. Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, said last week that the US and countries serving in the Nato military alliance are continuing air raids in civilian areas, despite his call for them to stop. Kabul recently sent Nato headquarters a draft agreement that would give Afghanistan more control over future Nato deployments in the country. The draft also says that Nato troops should no longer conduct searches of Afghan homes. The US military is facing a stern challenge in maintaining order in Afghanistan in the face of a resurgent Taliban. Extra troops US marines are ready to leave Iraq quickly so that 20,000 soldiers can be sent to Afghanistan, James Conway, Marine Corps commandant, said on Friday. "The time is right for marines to leave Iraq," the senior marine officer said. About 2,200 marines are currently serving in Afghanistan, as part of the 34,000-strong US military contingent there. In all, US military planners are expected to deploy a total of 30,000 extra troops to the country in the next 12 to 18 months, reflecting the emphasis that Barack Obama, the US president, is putting on the war in Afghanistan. And while the US prepares to boost its forces, Karzai is coming under international pressure over the efficacy of his leadership. "They have been holding on to Karzai in the hope of bringing about some semblance of governance in Afghanistan but recently Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that the problems in Afghanistan stem from governance rather than from terrorism," Imtiaz Gul, a political analyst in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, told Al Jazeera. "If we are to go by what Scheffer says, Karzai's days are numbered. There are going to be very tough elections in Afghanistan in the next few months." Source: Al Jazeera and agencies Feedback Number of comments : 2 M Naqqaad
Afghanistan 24/01/2009 Leave us alon Nobody invited the NATO & US to afghanistan. Even the dispensationn which has been assembled by these very people is not being given any respect. This is plain colonism and any number of their soldiers killed will be conunted as mecenary. We are better off with our own system because the scant respect to Afghan life is taking us deeper into the stone age. May be this may be your aim.
digdeeper
Australia 24/01/2009 dispute over deadly us afghan raid how is the afghani government expected to run a country properly with all of the chaos that is occuring there??? it is a lawless land, at the moment and the americans are unrestrainedly doing their cowboy thing. i read a report that said there are (secret)prisons there where afghanis are being tortured. imagine now, they are sending thousands more soldiers in. such a horror for those poor afghanisand their land, now peppered with more land mines!!!
Map of Laghman Province in Afghanistan.
On January 15, a United States military strike in the Afghan province of Laghman killed 15 people, according to U.S. officials. The U.S claims only militants were killed, but on Saturday, village elders disputed that claim with the allegation that the casualties were all civilians. The raid has sparked demonstrations in Afghanistan, with demonstrators renewing their pleas for the occupying forces to leave the country. 

Afghan leaders have said that the U.S has apologized to them for the attack, but have not publicly admitted to making a mistake. In a statement, the U.S government described what they believed to be a successful mission against a wanted militant, saying, "the operation in Mehtar Lam District, approximately 60km northeast of Kabul City, targeted a Taliban commander believed to conduct terrorist activities throughout the Kabul, Laghman and Kapisa provinces."

"As coalition forces approached the wanted militant's compound, several groups of armed militants exited their homes and began manoeuvering on the force," added the statement. Nine fighters were killed by small-arms fire and four killed by "precision close-air support", the statement continued, adding that two other fighters were killed during a subsequent search of the houses in the compound.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates ''(left)'' and Afghani President Hamid Karzai at a press conference in 2007. 
However, this version of events was contested when a statement from the Afghani president's office declared that 16 civilians were killed, not 15 militants. That statement also claimed that two women and three children were among the dead.

Thousands of angered Afghanis took to the streets in the Afghan city of Mihtarlam, chanting "death to Americans".  

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan condemned the incident, and said that bombing civilians "will not bear any progress in the war against terrorism".

U.S President Barack Obama has vowed to put more U.S troops in Afghanistan, ignoring a request from President Karzai that there be a timetable for U.S withdrawal from the country. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the new administration's goal is to eliminate the threat posed by al-Qaeda and other groups. "Let me just say both President Bush and President Obama have made clear that we will go after al-Qaeda wherever al-Qaeda is and we will continue to pursue them," Gates said.