A number of innocent people were killed last month in International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) airstrikes in Paktia, Kandahar and Kapisa provinces, investigators said on Saturday.
Mohammad Tahir Sapi, the head of an official delegation appointed by President Hamid Karzai to probe the emotive incidents, said seven people were killed and two others wounded in the latest airstrike in Shah Joi area of Zherai district in Kandahar.
On Nov. 24, two people were killed in Maiwand district, he told a news conference in Kabul. The ISAF commander in the south had apologised for the incident, Sapi said, adding their investigation revealed the victims were civilians.
In central Kapisa province, an ISAF-fired rocked hit a house in the Bahadar Khel village of Tagab district, killing seven people and injuring two others, he said.
Although the ISAF commander in the province had claimed those killed were Taliban financiers, Sapi insisted the dead had no links to the insurgents.
He said they would hold a meeting on Sunday with President Hamid Karzai and the NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, to discuss their findings.
Another member of the team, Abdul Hanan Haqyun, said one woman was killed and five others were injured in the Ahmadabad district of southeaster Paktia province, where ISAF raided the house of the counternarcotics director.
He said their investigation showed the house was attacked without any reason. The director was detained along with two sons and his seven-moth pregnant wife killed in the raid.
The killing of civilians at the hands of foreign troops was no longer tolerable, he said, warning of a serious backlash if such operations continued.
A day after the incident in Paktia, President Karzai asked Gen. Allen to prevent foreign troops from entering Afghan houses. Later, an ISAF spokesman said nigh raids would continue, calling such operations the safest way to keep Taliban leaders off the battlefield.
Source: Pajhwok Afghan News
25 December , 2011
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