| DURHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE
- December 10 - More than 3,500 civilians have been killed
in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs, according to a study to
be released December 10 by Marc W. Herold, Professor
of Economics, International Relations, and Women's
Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Professor
Herold will announce his findings on Monday, December
10 in a discussion with award-winning journalist, Amy
Goodman of Democracy Now! in Exile's War and Peace
Report (http://www.democracynow.org).
Professor Herold has been gathering data on civilian
casualties since October 7 by culling information from
news agencies, major newspapers, and first-hand
accounts. "I decided to do the study because I
suspected that the modern weaponrywas not what it was
advertised to be. I was concerned that there would be
significant civilian casualties caused by the bombing,
and I was able to find some mention of casualties in
the foreign press but almost nothing in the U.S.
press," said Herold.
Herold's data will be available at
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/.
For each day since October 7, when the U.S. bombing of
Afghanistan began, he lists the number of casualties,
location, type of weapon used, and source(s) of
information. Following are several examples from his
daily calculations:
- On October 11, two U.S. jets bombed the mountain
village of Karam, comprised of 60 mud houses, during
dinner and evening prayer time, killing 100-160
people. Sources: DAWN, (English language Pakistani
daily newspaper), the Guardian of London, the
Independent, International Herald Tribune, the
Scotsman, the Observer, and the BBC News.
- On October 13, in the early morning, an F-18 dropped
2,000 lb. JDAM bombs on the Qila Meer Abas
neighborhood, 2 kms. South of the Kabul airport,
killing four people. Sources: Afghan Islamic Press,
Los Angeles Times, Frontier Post, Pakistan Observer,
the Guardian of London, and the BBC News.
- On October 31, in a pre-dawn raid, an F-18 dropped a
2,000 lb. JDAM bomb on a Red Crescent clinic, killing
15 - 25 people. Sources: DAWN, the Times of London,
the Independent, the Guardian, Reuters, Associated
Press, and Agence France Presse.
Professor Herold has sought whenever possible to
cross-corroborate accounts of civilian casualties. He
relied upon British, Canadian, and Australian
newspapers; Indian newspapers, especially The Times of
India; three Pakistani daily newspapers; the Singapore
News; Afghan Islamic Press; Agence France Press;
Pakistan News Service; Reuters; BBC News Online; Al
Jazeera; and a variety of other reputable sources,
including the United Nations and other relief
agencies.
The Pentagon has repeatedly denied reports of civilian
casualties in Afghanistan, and most U.S. media outlets
have qualified their reports of casualties with the
statement "could not be independently confirmed." But
Professor Herold has been able to confirm the number
of casualties and has found that the number is
climbing toward 4,000. "People have to know that there
is a human cost to war, and that this is a war with
thousands of casualties," said Herold. "These were
poor people to begin with, and, on top of that, they
had absolutely nothing to do with the events of
September 11."
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