Afghans' legacy of pain from US air raid

Seven-year-old Noria Barkat lets out another piercing scream. The entire left side of her body is a patchwork of weeping bandages. There is no air conditioning in the suffocating burns unit of the main hospital in Herat, western Afghanistan. Noria has been here with her two sisters for 20 days. Her doctor says that when she arrived her wounds were open and infected. Since then, she has endured two skin-graft operations and is now slowly recovering. All three girls are victims of the same incident–a series of US air strikes that Afghan officials say killed their mother along with as many as 140 other people. American officials, however, say that even 100 fatalities is an exaggeration but they have yet to issue their own count of civilian deaths. The now infamous bombing of Granai village on May 4 in Farah province, south of Herat, saw what appears to have been the highest number of civilian casualties in a single incident in Afghanistan since the conflict began in 2001. It triggered a riot in nearby Farah city and angry demonstrations in Kabul. Noria's father, Said, is a lorry driver and had taken his family to visit his mother-in-law in Granai. He describes how the bombing started near the village well over an hour after a fierce battle between US soldiers and the Taliban a few kilometres away. A large crowd of people leaving the mosque after evening prayers was hit. Then in their panic the survivors ran for cover to the other side of the village and gathered in a single area. "Immediately the helicopter came and dropped a bomb right into the middle of them," says Said. "The Americans' war is with just the Taliban, why do they kill the innocent?" His three daughters were among just seven survivors from that group. His wife was among the 68 people who villagers say were killed in an instant. On the main road north- east from Farah city late last month there were few other vehicles. Every few kilometres the cars slowed down to navigate the police checkpoints. But they were not really checking anything–the Afghan policemen, some of them teenagers, hid nervously behind their sandbags, peering over their machine guns. After 40 kilometres there is a turn-off on to an uneven track. This area, Bala Baluk, was at the centre of the resistance to the Russians in Farah province more than two decades ago. A few people work the fields either side of the track. Decaying agricultural machinery stands idle by the roadside with at least one partly destroyed Soviet vehicle from the "holy war" of the 1980s. The May 4 bombing began just over a kilometre from Granai village. A tribal elder with extensive local knowledge of the surrounding area says this was the closest that the Taliban came to Granai as they retreated. The US disputes this account and claims that the Taliban entered the village, turning it into a legitimate target. There is a partially destroyed farmhouse and two large craters. The fighters briefly regrouped here in the evening before melting back into the maze of ditches and trees in the surrounding countryside. Yet bombs landed there 90 minutes later, the elder says. Again, the Americans disagree and say the bombings took place in the heat of battle with the Taliban, with no delay. The elder's account appears to be corroborated by other residents of Granai who spoke in Farah to the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. A little further on, the track ends beside a sprawl of uneven, sand-coloured walls and buildings. Every spare patch of ground in the surrounding fields shows remnants of this year's opium harvest. The pods, now bone dry, sport the meticulous cuts used to extract the resin from within. "There is no work here except growing opium. It does not make much profit these days," says the elder. Two parts of the village saw the greatest loss of life. One, the main village mosque, is in ruins. Its dome is still intact, with the speakers used to announce the call to prayer hanging limply from the roof. But the area immediately around it is a mass of rubble and craters. Every building in the vicinity has been demolished. It was dusk when the attack came. A large crowd of people were in the garden after evening prayers. On the other side of the village is what looks like a piece of open waste ground. But closer inspection reveals the foundations of a house. Items of clothing and broken crockery are strewn among the debris. This was where people gathered after the attack on the mosque. It was here that Noria and her sisters were injured. "The people were afraid. About 10 to 15 families gathered in the same place to be safe together. This was in the evening and it was dark," says the elder. He recalls a small "helicopter" with no pilot that made a "zzzz" sound. He appears to be describing one of the pilotless drones used by Nato troops to relay video film of the battlefield. "My cousins, my sister, my nephews and also my nieces were all killed in this place," he says. "About 13 or 14 people related to my sister were killed here. I found my nephew's body recently over there. A farmer found another body over there." On the hill, beyond the village, are traditional Muslim graves ranged as far as the eye can see. The fresh ones number more than 70. The elder points to those of his sister and her children. Then at the far end of the cemetery he stands before one enormous grave stretching more than 50 metres across. "This is the grave that almost 55 people are buried in because their bodies are in pieces," he says. The elder adds: "With this situation going on, the people are becoming more separate from the government. However, they hate the Taliban also. "These are poor people. They hate the government, they hate the Americans and they hate to live in this place. We think that this country is like a prison for us."