KABUL, July 5: The governor of the central Afghan province of Uruzgan said on Friday he wanted the US military to hand over the “informer” who told it to bomb villages in his province this week, killing 46 civilians.
“If they (Americans) don’t submit the informer to us, then they are our enemy,” Jaan Mohammad said.
“The Americans for sure know who this person is. We know him too, but we don’t want to reveal his name.”
The US military said on Wednesday it had received reliable information from several sources that senior Taliban leaders were sheltering in a remote Uruzgan village close to Deh Rawud, near the birthplace of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
A special forces team went in to “cordon and search” the village, but called in air strikes after seeing anti-aircraft fire coming from the area directed at coalition warplanes.
On Friday, U.S. military spokesmen Colonel Roger King said they had detained several suspected Taliban or Al Qaeda men during the operation.
“As I understand it there was a part of the operation directed at suspected members of Taliban and Al Qaeda,” King told reporters at Bagram air base. “There were a small group of individuals who were taken under control.”
The Afghan government says 46 people were killed, including women and children attending a wedding party, when US planes attacked several villages on Sunday night and Monday morning.
But a U.S. investigating team, which has been in the area since Wednesday, said it has so far only seen five graves.
Analysts said mounting anger about the civilian casualties could undermine the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, and complicate US efforts to track down Taliban remnants and followers of Osama bin Laden.
Karzai urged the United States on Thursday to liaise more closely with his government on its military operations in Afghanistan.
“Arrangements should be clear,” he said. “Any operation needs to be coordinated with the Afghan defence ministry.”
“Our people should be immune,” he told journalists. “People should not be hurt and the campaign against the Taliban and terrorism must not become the cause of people’s harassment.”
Karzai said he would soon travel to Uruzgan to visit mourning families there and urged the United States not to carry out military operations based only on the intelligence of informers.
But at Bagram, staging post for the US-led coalition, King said there would not be a halt in operations in the area.
“There are operations ongoing,” King said. “While we don’t like to talk about specifics of what is happening at the time it’s happening, I will tell you that we don’t have plans to avoid working in the area in the future.”
King said the investigating team’s return to the capital, originally expected on Friday, had been delayed for at least a day because of bad weather at a US airbase in Kandahar, where they were due to be picked by helicopter.
“There is limited visibility in Kandahar due to high winds and blowing dusts,” King said.
he added that the team would meet Gen Dan McNeill, the general commander of US forces in Afghanistan, and also Afghan President Hamid Karzai after returning.
King said the conflicting reports about the casualties in the air raid may lead to further investigation in the area.—Reuters