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US Forces Kill MP’s Relative in Botched Night Raid
American special forces have raided the home of a prominent Afghan woman MP, killing one of her relatives in an operation that provoked public protests yesterday.
Afghans gather in anger after botched NATO raid. A popular backlash against night-time property searches and claims that civilians have been mistakenly killed in such raids forced General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, publicly to order last month that they be limited to actions of “last resort”, although he refused requests from President Karzai to ban them outright. (TimesOnline) The incident occurred as a Pentagon report suggested that there was
tenuous support for the Western-backed Afghan Government in a majority
of the country’s most strategically important districts.
Safia Sidiqi, an MP in the eastern province of Nangahar, was not at home when Afghan and foreign forces raided her property on Wednesday night and abused her family, she said. Speaking from the funeral by phone, she told The Times that her niece’s husband, who lived in a neighbouring home, was killed after seizing a shotgun to confront what he thought were robbers entering his property.
A popular backlash against night-time property searches and claims
that civilians have been mistakenly killed in such raids forced General
Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, publicly to order last month
that they be limited to actions of “last resort”, although he refused
requests from President Karzai to ban them outright.
Scores of local people paraded the body of the dead man along a main
road through the province yesterday chanting: “Death to America”.
Nato said after the attack that an armed individual was killed after ignoring demands, made through an Afghan interpreter, to lower his weapon. The statement said that the joint Afghan-US operation was targeting “a Taleban facilitator”. It did not mention the MP.
“The Americans went to my house. It was not a mistake, they knew it was my house. They killed my relative,” Ms Sidiqi said. “There were more than 100 soldiers and they completely destroyed my home and my neighbour’s home. These actions are creating the distance that exists between the Afghan Government and the people.” The dead man left five children. “The Americans have created five more enemies,” she added.
Ms Sidiqi said that US forces were being fed false intelligence by local spies. “Most of the spies work with the Americans, hate America and try to give a bad name to the Americans in order to make the Afghan people hate them,” she said.
US commanders maintain that the raids are a legitimate military tool that is steadily eroding Taleban leadership structures. Colonel Abdul Ghafur, a spokesman for the Afghan police in Nangahar, said that a police investigation had been launched into the incident. “We can’t say whether the man killed was an insurgent or not,” he said.
The latest public relations trial for Nato came as a detailed report released by the Pentagon suggested that there have been some military gains by Western forces against the Taleban but that the Afghan Government enjoys tenuous support in key areas of the country.
• Embattled French troops mistakenly killed four Afghan civilians and seriously wounded one during a clash with insurgents in the Tagab Valley, east of Kabul.
- Posted in
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14 Comments so far
Show AllHas anyone ever assembled a summary list of the atrocity killings by the US military in the middle east since the first Gulf war began?
Such a list would be devastating in exposing what is actually happening in our middle eastern wars.
Jim Shea
Even if we're not keeping track, you can bet that plenty of people in the Middle East are. Creating enemies: Mission Accomplished! Guaranteeing eternal warfare and a permanent need for a warfare state.
The US military-industrial complex = the world's largest protection racket.
"claims of killed civilians"? Propaganda
Sorta like those "maybe USA drones".
Why would anyone lower their weapon when being ordered to do so by a black masked nija in the dark?
Notice the chants are not Death to Karzai but Death to the evil empire.
Atrocity killing are the norm. All the killings by our troops and hired mercenaries are atrocities. We have no legal reason to be invading and occupying any Muslim nation. We were not attacked by any Muslims on 9/11. The controlled demolition of those buildings was an inside job to frighten and anger Americans so that we would not protest the long planned war against Iraq and Afghanistan.
Remember the Maine? The sinking of the Lusitania? the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor? the Tonkin incident? The attack on the Liberty? All these were planned events to start a war for the benefit of the very wealthy people who would profit from a war.
This Times (UK) account of this event failed to mention that the family attacked in Afghanistan are Canadians. Last night, the CBC (Can. Broadcasting Corp.) radio talk-show, "As It Happens" had an interview with the owner of the house. She explained that the soldiers attacking the home said at the time that they knew that it was her home they were attacking. She explained the the US self-defense explanation for killing her relative is not true, and cannot be true given the physical relationship of the killer to the victim. Here is CBC's online description of the interview:
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US AFGHAN SHOOTING Duration: 00:07:16
Last night, during a raid on a home in rural Afghanistan, American soldiers shot and killed a local villager. During war, incidents like this often go unreported. But in this case, the home in question belonged to a well-known Member of Afghanistan's Parliament, Safia Siddiqi, an Afghan-Canadian. And the person killed was one of her relatives. We reached Safia Siddiqi in Jalalabad.
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The podcast of this interview is available at: http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/podcast.html
"...in this case, the home in question belonged to a well-known Member of Afghanistan's Parliament, Safia Siddiqi, an Afghan-Canadian."
Who wants to wager that MP Siddiqui was not quite playing ball the way the invaders wanted her to?
These 'tragic incidents' of 'last resort' seem to happen with remarkably frequency to those who actually want Afghanistan to be a free, independent country once again, and to those who stand up to the American/NATO occupation and demand to be treated as fellow human beings.
Exactly just as the "Bound pregnant women Atrocity" was a local prosecutor and intelligence chief also being difficult such as, probably monitoring CIA heroin trade.
And what ever happened with the " Eleven(?) Handcuffed Headshot Students Atrocity" ?
We should name every Atrocity.
-These actions are creating the distance that exists between the Afghan Government and the people.” The dead man left five children. “The Americans have created five more enemies,” she added.
Since these murders happen regularly, and are in direct opposition to pledges by Bush and McCrystal, either we are to believe that the elites running America are completely stupid, or it is the aim of America's corporate driven government to create more enemies that must be feared and fought with an expensive war machine that is paid for out of tax-payer money but whose profits go to the rich few at the top of the pyramid.
psst Bush III ( Obomber)
Oh if we do not vote Dim we get worse.
Bush? Obama? I'm always getting those two mixed up.
Botched Night Raid - The only kind of night raid. Not one has gone as planned.
A bunch of heavily armed men burst into a home in the middle of the night, shouting in a foreign language, berserking, terrifying the family, dragging some people away and killing others. I fondly remember the days when such scenes in the movies were attributed only to Nazis.
Joe
Death to America?
That would make them ALL terrorists! Get their picture and retina scan, quick! Add them to the ever growing list.
Are these night-raider troops wearing pointy hoods yet?