Peace Pundit

Below are excerpts from two recent newspaper reports of civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The first reports the killing of six Afghan civilians by a Taliban suicide bomber. The second reports the killing of several civilians in Pakistan by a U.S. missile strike from across the border in Afghanistan.

Suicide Bomber Kills 6 Afghan Civilians, Injures Dozens

San Francisco Chronicle, 14 March 2008

Kabul, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber targeting U.S. troops instead killed six Afghan civilians Thursday (3/13)…

[The] attack in Kabul, near its international airport, was aimed at a two-vehicle U.S. military convoy. In addition to at least six civilians killed, more than a dozen were wounded.

Western news agencies reported that the Taliban claimed responsibility.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the bombing a cowardly attack, one of many he said was meant to harm innocent civilians. However, public anger over such attacks by militants often rebounds against Karzai’s government and the presence of more than 50,000 foreign troops.

…

U.S. coalition’s strike in Pakistan said to kill civilians, not Taliban

Associated Press, 14 March 2008

Tangrai, Pakistan — U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan fired across the border into Pakistan in a strike targeting Taliban militants, and the Pakistani army said Thursday that civilians were killed.

The attack illustrates American concerns that the Taliban and al Qaeda are using Pakistan’s lawless frontier as a base for attacks in Afghanistan.

But anger at civilian deaths could lead to a review by the incoming Pakistani government of the country’s counterterrorism strategy and its U.S.-backed policy of using military force to root out militants.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said troops used “precision-guided munitions” to strike a compound about a mile inside Pakistan on Wednesday.

Maj. Chris Belcher said that the troops were responding to an “imminent threat” and that the coalition informed Pakistani authorities after the strike. “We received reliable intelligence indicating senior Haqqani network members were in the compound at the time of the strike,” Belcher said Thursday in Kabul.

Siraj Haqqani is a prominent Afghan militant. On Wednesday, a coalition statement accused him of organizing a suicide attack that killed two NATO soldiers at an Afghan government office March 3. It said Haqqani “has become the most dangerous Taliban leader in Afghanistan.”

In Tangrai, a village of about 40 houses surrounded by fields and mountains, residents led an Associated Press reporter to the rubble of the house hit in the attack. Only one of its four walls was standing amid a tangle of mud bricks, bedding and cooking pots.

“We are innocent, we have nothing to do with such things,” said Noor Khan, a grocer who said the wrecked building had been his family home. He said six of his relatives - four women and two boys - died in the attack. “We are poor people just trying to earn a living,” he said.

The Pakistani army said four civilians — two women and two children — died. There was no way to resolve the discrepancy between the numbers.

It was not clear whether the coalition forces fired from the ground or the air or what weapons were used. Belcher said he could not detail the threat and had no information on casualties.

Pakistan’s army, which has received billions of dollars from Washington to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban, initially said the incident was an accident.

…

There have been several incidents in the past of coalition fire landing in Pakistani territory.

Some may be due to the poor demarcation of the long, rugged border. Last June, a rocket fired during a battle between U.S.-led NATO forces and insurgents in Afghanistan struck a home in North Waziristan, killing 10 civilians.

But there also have been several cases where unmanned U.S. drones have fired missiles at suspected militant hideouts in Pakistan’s border regions…