| | Karzai offers families ‘blood money’ for sons killed in raid The Times
03/09/2010
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
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President Karzai has paid “blood money” to the families of nine children killed in a brutal night raid after Nato admitted that they were gunned down by mistake.
US-led forces had originally claimed that the victims were part of a terrorist cell making improvised explosive devices but an investigation by The Times found that Nato now believes the victims, aged 12-18, were killed in an operation based on faulty intelligence.
The President paid relatives Afs100,000 (£1,300) for each of the victims — eight students from one family, a 12-year-old shepherd boy who was the family’s guest and a farmer from a neighbouring compound.
But he stopped short of telling the relatives exactly who had killed their sons and he refused to be drawn on whether the gunmen involved will face justice, despite demands by his own Security Council to bring the killers to trial.
Nato said that the “joint assault force” was not under their command. One senior Nato source said that the gunmen were “non-military”.
Assadullah Wafa, who led the initial investigation, said that the killers took off from Kabul, suggesting they were part of a Special Forces unit, although Nato officers have hinted that they were Afghan.
“We complained to the President that no one has taken responsibility,” said Farooq Abul Ajan, who lost two children, four nephews and two brothers in the operation. “We wanted to know who it was.”
The raid in a volatile part of Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan sparked violent protests in at least three cities, with children as young as ten chanting “death to America”, while fellow protesters burnt US flags and an effigy of Barack Obama.
The chief legal advisor at Nato’s Kabul headquarters, Colonel John Gross, said that US forces were present but not leading the operation in Ghazi Khan village in Narang district, in the early hours of December 27.
Afghan investigators said that the children were dragged from their beds and shot.
Farooq and his brother Mohammed Taleb, said that most of the children and the 12-year-old shepherd boy were killed where they slept but their half brother Najibullah, 18, was dragged from the bed he shared with his wife and shot in a different room along with three of his nephews. Abdul Khaliq, a neighbouring farmer, was gunned down when he ran out of his house during the raid.
President Karzai, who visited the scene of a massive Nato operation in Helmand today, met Mr Farooq, Mohammed Taleb, the boys’ headmaster Rahman Jan Ehsas and a delegation of local MPs on Saturday.
“Karzai listened to everything, but he didn’t say anything about what he would do,” Mr Ehsas said. “He didn’t say anything directly, that he would arrest them, or bring them to justice. He just said that after 20 days or a month, he would call us back with the elders to talk about this issue.”
President Karzai has repeatedly criticised US-led troops for killing Afghan civilians, prompting the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to introduce new rules on the use of air strikes and heavy weapons.
Last week Nato released sections of a new tactical directive designed to limit night raids.
Mr Ehsas said that the President spoke movingly about civilian deaths: "He said, 'The sons of the people are my sons. When they lose their children I feel it in my heart as if I lost my sons also’.”
The President met about 300 elders in Marjah today, a former Taleban stronghold, largely cleared by thousands of US and Afghan forces.
He appealed for their support, while some of the crowd complained about civilian casualties caused by the recent offensive and night raids led by foreign forces.
“The people told me of their problems with sincerity and clarity. God willing, we will try to solve your problems,” Mr Karzai said.
“I’m glad that I had the opportunity to meet people and talk to them. At the same time it’s a source of sadness that these people have suffered by the Afghan Government and the foreigners,” he added.
Human rights groups claimed that at least 19 civilians were killed in Operation Moshtarak, including nine people in a house hit by a rocket. Meanwhile at least 27 people including women and a child were killed in neighbouring Oruzgan province when a convoy of three minibuses was bombed on the orders of US Special Forces.
The President’s spokesman, Waheed Omar, said that the palace and the National Security Council had assured the relatives of the Narang raid that they were “actively seeking” to bring the perpetrators to justice.
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