http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ll=chi-news-hed
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer
Published December 7, 2003, 1:06 AM CST
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A U.S. air strike apparently killed nine children as well as the suspected militant who was targeted on Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, according to the U.S. military.
An American A-10 aircraft struck a site south of Ghazni, 100 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, where a "known terrorist" was believed to be hiding at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Army Maj. Christopher E. West told The Associated Press.
"At the time we initiated the attack, we did not know there were children nearby," he said.
Jawaid Khan, the Ghazni governor's secretary, said that eight children and two men were killed. He said the intended target, whom he identified as a former Taliban commander named Mullah Wazir, was not killed.
"The Americans wanted to bomb Mullah Wazir, but they bombed a different house," Khan told the AP. "The people there are very afraid. They have no idea why the Americans bombed their village."
The target was a man believed responsible for the killing of two foreign contractors who were working on an Afghan road, West said. He did not identify the contractors and had no information about their deaths, but two Indian engineers were reported kidnapped while working on the road Saturday.
West said U.S. troops collected "extensive intelligence over an extended period of time" and located the suspect targeted Saturday at an "isolated, rural site."
West said the military was sending a team of investigators to the site to determine if U.S. forces were at fault.
"Following the attack, ground coalition forces searching the area found the bodies of both the intended target and those of nine children nearby," he said Sunday.
Coalition forces "will make every effort to assist the families of these innocent casualties and determine the cause of the civilian deaths," he said from the U.S. headquarters in Bagram.
"We regret the loss of any innocent life and we follow stringent rules of engagement to specifically avoid this type of incident while continuing to target terrorists who threaten the future of Afghanistan," West said.
Another local official Ahmad Zia Masood said that Wazir had fired at U.S. helicopters on Friday.
Masood said it was unclear if the 10 victims were Wazir and his family or their neighbors.
He said the attack took place at Atla village, just north of where the two Indian road engineers were kidnapped by suspected Taliban.
The kidnapped engineers, who were not identified, were working for an Indian contractor helping resurface part of the Kabul-Kandahar road, a reconstruction project mainly funded by the United States. The road was to be officially opened later this month.
Taliban attacks have plagued the flagship project. Four construction workers were killed at the end of August, and de-mining operations along the road were suspended last month after a carjacking. A Turk was abducted along the road last month.
Two contractors working for the CIA also were killed in an Oct. 25 ambush as they were tracking terrorists operating in the region of Shkin, about 100 miles south of Kabul.
Also Saturday, a bomb in Kandahar, the main southern stronghold of the Taliban, ripped through a bustling bazaar, wounding 20 Afghans. Taliban fighters claimed responsibility, saying the blast was aimed at American soldiers but went off late.
The bomb, apparently attached to a parked motorcycle or bicycle, exploded in front of a hotel at about 12:30 p.m. in the city's main commercial district. The wounded included three children, Afghan state TV reported.
U.S. officials have been trying to track down remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers in eastern and southern Afghanistan since ousting the hard-line Islamic regime two years ago. The militants have stepped up attacks in recent months, targeting foreign aid workers and perceived allies of the U.S.-led coalition.
The Indian engineers disappeared in Zabul province while traveling along the country's main highway between Kabul and Kandahar, an aide to Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told the AP.
An Indian Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the engineers were traveling with an Afghan driver and another Afghan employee when they were stopped.
The kidnappers "roughed up the driver, and he was able to return to the company. They let the other Afghan go as well.
A spokesman for The Louis Berger Group Inc., an American engineering company overseeing the road project, declined to comment on the reported kidnapping, as did a U.S. Embassy official.
International aid agencies have scaled down operations in Afghanistan's south and east due to escalating violence, including the Nov. 16 shooting death of a French aid worker for the United Nations.
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Associated Press writer Chris Hawley in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press