US Bombing in Afghanistan Kills as Many as 120, Including Women and Children

“Houses that were full of children and women and elders were bombed by planes.” This is what US escalation in Afghanistan looks like.

By Jeremy Scahill

A massive US bombing raid on two villages in Afghanistan has killed as many as 120 people, among them women and children in strikes the Red Cross called one of the most “serious and biggest” attacks “for a very long time.” The New York TImes reports the attacks in Farah province “could be the largest case of civilian casualties since an attack on the village of Azizabad in western Afghanistan last year, in which United Nations officials said there was convincing evidence that 90 civilians were killed.”

The deaths came to public attention this week after local people brought some 30 bodies to the provincial capital to show government officials. A former Afghan official said he had seen dozens of bodies when he visited the village of Gerani and estimated between 100 and 120 people were killed in the attacks.

“These houses that were full of children and women and elders were bombed by planes. It is very difficult to say how many were killed because nobody can count the number, it is too early,” Mohammad Nieem Qadderdan told the Associated Press. “People are digging through rubble with shovels and hands.”

In Afghanistan, the office of the US-backed Afghan president Hamid Karzai described the deaths as “unjustifiable and unacceptable,” but in Washington Karzai himself did not mention the attacks specifically in front of US audiences. Instead he spoke in vague terms about the need to “win” the “war on terror” from a “higher platform of morality,” saying, “We must be conducting this war as better human beings,” and recognize that “force won’t buy you obedience.” Soon after the attacks, the International Committee of the Red Cross sent a team in to the area to investigate:

A team from the international Red Cross traveled to Bala Baluk district in Farah on Tuesday, where the officials saw “dozens of bodies in each of the two locations that we went to,” said spokeswoman Jessica Barry.

“There were bodies, there were graves, and there were people burying bodies when we were there,” she said. “We do confirm women and children. There were women and children.”

Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan. The reality is that this is what escalation looks like.