On Wednesday, November 7, Afghan government officials — members of parliament — were visiting a sugar factory in north Afghanistan. Hundreds of school children were on hand to welcome them. In the midst of the ceremony, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing and injuring many bystanders, including parliamentarians and children. In response, bodyguards of parliamentarians opened fire, killing more people.
A sequence of news reports shows how the chaos of such cataclysmic events can make it difficult to determine accurately what has happened, and that finding the truth depends on who is doing the reporting and requires investigations afterwards.
- An Associated Press (AP) story published by the SF Chronicle on 8 Nov reported that “witnesses said some of the victims may have been killed or wounded by security guards who opened fire after the blast.” This story gave the death toll as “68, most of them children or teenagers.”
- A story in USA Today posted 9 Nov at War Victims Monitor [see story] mentioned only the suicide bomber. This story set the official death toll at 75, including 59 kids and 5 teachers.
- More recently, an AP story printed in the SF Chronicle on 18 Nov (excerpted below) reported: “Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers’ panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes” according to a preliminary report coming from a United Nations investigation. According to the article, the Afghan government disputes the finding, arguing that the bomb caused most of the casualties.
- Finally, another AP story published on 19 Nov by the SF Chronicle [see story] reported: “An internal U.N. report obtained Monday said bodyguards protecting parliamentarians fired indiscriminately into a crowd after a suicide bombing and that children bore ‘the brunt of the onslaught.’ The report also said there was no evidence to show authorities had tried to identify those behind the shootings or bring them ‘to account for their crimes.’”
Most Victims in Bombing Hit by Bodyguards’ Gunfire, Report Says
By Alisa Tang, Jason Straziuso, and Fisnik Abrashi
Associated Press
Baghlani-Jadid, Afghanistan — Up to two thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers’ panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says.
Afghanistan’s Interior Minister says only a “small number” of the victims were hit by gunfire, but an Afghan official in Baglan province said the bodyguards were “raining bullets” on the crowd.
The suicide bomb contained ball bearings, the Interior Ministry said, which may have caused wounds that look like bullet holes.
An Afghan doctor who treated patients after the Nov. 6 blast, meanwhile, told the AP that a high-ranking government official told him not to publicly reveal the number of gunfire victims, suggesting a possible government cover-up.
Separate teams of U.N. investigators have uncovered conflicting information about the number of people hit by gunfire and are trying to reconcile the differences …
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Among the dead were 61 students and five teachers, said Education Ministry advisor Hamid Almi. Six members of parliament and five bodyguards also died. Among the parliamentarians killed was Seyyed Mustafa Kazemi, the chief spokesman of Afghanistan’s only opposition group, the United National Front.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack… The Taliban has denied it was responsible. …
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