.......Men Aslak Skancke forsikrer oss om at dette sannsynligvis
er innafor de grenser som settes av FN-pakt og folkerett.
Så vi kan puste lettet ut.
Trond Andresen
*****************************
>Bloody Evidence of US Blunder
>
>Rory Carroll in Qalaye Niazi
>Monday January 7, 2002
>The Guardian UK
>
>The attack on Qalaye Niazi was as sudden and devastating as the
>Pentagon intended. American special forces on the ground confirmed
>the target and three bombers, a B-52 and two B-1Bs, did the rest,
>zapping Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in their sleep as well as an
>ammunition dump.
>
>The war on terrorism came no cleaner and Commander Matthew Klee, a
>spokesman at the US central command in Tampa, Florida, had reassuring
>news: "Follow-on reporting indicates that there was no collateral
>damage."
>
>Some of the things his follow-on reporters missed: bloodied
>children's shoes and skirts, bloodied school books, the scalp of a
>woman with braided grey hair, butter toffees in red wrappers, wedding
>decorations.
>
>The charred meat sticking to rubble in black lumps could have been
>Osama bin Laden's henchmen but survivors said it was the remains of
>farmers, their wives and children, and wedding guests.
>
>They said more than 100 civilians died at this village in eastern Afghanistan.
>
>Survivors lacked the bewilderment common to those who have been
>bombed, because they had an explanation: a tribal rival had
>manipulated the Americans into attacking Qalaye Niazi to further his
>political ambitions in Paktia province.
>
>The Pentagon said it had indications that senior Taliban and al-Qaida
>officials were at the site and that two surface-to-air missiles were
>fired at the aircraft during the December 29 raid. The bombs set off
>secondary explosions consistent with stockpiled ammunition.
>
>The Pentagon has produced no evidence that missiles were fired at the
>planes but there was a stockpile. From the ruins of two houses
>yesterday spilled boxes of Russian, Chinese and Iranian rockets.
>
>Diehard Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are said to still rove Paktia
>and its neighbouring provinces of Paktika and Khost, where a US
>soldier was killed at the weekend. Qalaye Niazi's role seemed clear
>to Commander Klee: "You have a known al-Qaida-Taliban leadership
>compound."
>
>But survivors say they stored the ammunition six weeks ago on the
>orders of retreating Taliban troops. When the regime fell they
>notified authorities but no one came to collect the ammunition. "We
>left it. What else were we supposed to do with it?" said Taj
>Mohammad, the village elder.
>
>It was stored in two unfinished houses in a five-house complex six
>miles north of the collection of mud-brick compounds which passes for
>Qalaye Niazi's centre. The complex housed 10 families who grew wheat,
>apples and grapes, said Mr Mohammad.
>
>About two dozen guests had crammed into the three occupied houses for
>a wedding, raising the number of occupants to more than 100, said the
>elder. The bombers came early in the morning.
>
>Precision-guided bombs vapourised all five buildings and a second
>wave an hour later hit people digging in the rubble and, judging from
>hair and flesh on the edge of three 40ft holes some distance from the
>complex, those trying to flee.
>
>Two days later villagers with shovels and tractors extracted the
>remains. A hand, an ankle, a bit of skull, sometimes an entire torso,
>and buried some in 11 graves, each said to contain several people,
>and relatives from Khost took some for burial in the mountains.
>
>Yesterday there were just human scraps and the carcasses of sheep,
>dogs and a cow, circled overhead by two crows.
>
>One villager said 32 died. The United Nations said 52, including 10
>women and 25 children. Mr Mohammad said at least 80. Other villagers
>said 92. Staff at the hospital in Gardez said 107.
>
>Innumeracy, rapid burial, damage to bodies, propaganda, remoteness,
>they all conspire to shred certainty in this and other bombings. It
>is no one's job to count the dead.
>
>The UN said its envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, will discuss
>Qalaye Niazi with US diplomats. The Pentagon has shifted slightly
>from its initial certitude and promised to investigate a raid which
>Donald Anderson, chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs
>select committee, denounced as a massive failure of intelligence.
>
>That civilians were present there can be little doubt. Taliban and
>al-Qaida too? Survivors swear not. Yet there is little venom for the
>US. "They were given bad information by bad Afghans," said Hinzer
>Gul, echoing neighbours.
>
>Haji Saifullah, head of Paktia's shura, or tribal council, said: "Our
>local enemies are delivering this information to the Americans that
>Taliban or al-Qaida people are here and Americans just bomb without
>any search."
>
>The finger was collectively pointed at Aghi Badshah Khan Zadran, 58,
>an anti-Taliban commander who controls Khost province and is lobbying
>the interim government to add Paktia and Paktika provinces to his
>fief.
>
>Some tribal elders said he threatened to call in US planes against
>them if they did not back him and that Qalaye Niazi was a warning. Mr
>Zadran, also known as Pacha Khan Zadran, was also accused of wiping
>out rivals by triggering the US blitz of a convoy of elders on
>December 20, which killed up to 65 people.
>
>Mr Zadran's officials were spotted with US special forces who relied
>on him because of his impeccable anti-Taliban credentials, said aides
>of his rival, Mr Saifullah.
>
>By his own account Mr Zadran is the most powerful commander in
>south-east Afghanistan. He hails the bombing as accurate and
>necessary to purge terrorists but says he has no idea where the
>Americans get their intelligence. He hotly rejects the accusations of
>manipulating air strikes.
>
>The allegations have rattled the prime minister, Hamid Karzai, who
>last week summoned Mr Zardan to Kabul to discuss Qalaye Niazi. But
>supporters were confident Mr Zadran would return home this week with
>his fief expanded to include Paktia and Paktika.
>
>"These allegations against him are nonsense. He is a democrat and
>pro-west. The government will confirm his appointment by Tuesday or
>Wednesday," said Amanullah Zadran, the minister for frontier and
>tribal affairs, and Mr Zadran's younger brother.
>
>Tribal politics tend to confuse even Afghans and one US official in
>Kabul admitted it was impenetrable to outsiders, no matter how well
>briefed. "So sure, mistakes happen."
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