Karzai demands Obama end civilian deaths

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday demanded that President-elect Barack Obama put an end to civilian casualties as villagers said U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people, including 23 children and 10 women. The U.S. military said it was investigating the report but an American spokesman added that "if innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences." The bombing Monday afternoon of the remote village of Wech Baghtu in the southern province of Kandahar destroyed an Afghan housing complex where women and children had gathered to celebrate. Body parts littered the wreckage and nearby farm animals lay dead. Villager Abdul Jalil, a 37-year-old grape farmer whose niece was getting married, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene of the bombing that U.S. troops and Taliban fighters had been fighting about a half mile from his home but that the militants fled and sought shelter in his grape orchards and in or near his home. A bombing run by fighter aircraft a short while later destroyed his compound and killed 37 people, including 23 children, 10 women and four men, Jalil said. No Afghan officials could immediately confirm the number of casualties, which happened in a remote and dangerous part of Kandahar province. But Karzai referred to the incident at a news conference Wednesday held to congratulate Obama on his U.S. presidential election victory. Karzai said he hopes the election will "bring peace to Afghanistan, life to Afghanistan and prosperity to the Afghan people and the rest of the world." He applauded America for its "courage" in electing Obama. But he also used the occasion to immediately press Obama to find a way to prevent civilians casualties in operations by foreign forces. He then said airstrikes had caused deaths in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province. "Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes," Karzai said. "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States–to put an end to civilian casualties." The alleged airstrikes come only three months after the Afghan government found that a U.S. operation killed some 90 civilians in western Afghanistan. A U.S. report said 33 civilians died in that attack. Another incident with a high number of civilian casualties could severely strain U.S.-Afghan relations. Jalil said American forces came into his village late Monday night or Tuesday morning–after the bombing run–and searched the villagers and detained some of the men. "The Americans came and told us, 'You are sheltering the Taliban,' and I told the Americans 'Come inside and see for yourself, you are killing women and children,'" Jalil said. "After they saw that all the dead were civilians, they gave us permission to bury the bodies." The U.S. military said it had sent personnel to the site to assess the situation and take appropriate action. "Though facts are unclear at this point, we take very seriously our responsibility to protect the people of Afghanistan and to avoid circumstances where noncombatant civilians are placed at risk," Cmdr. Jeff Bender said in a statement. "If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences to the families and the people of Afghanistan." Another witness to the bombing, Mohammad Nabi Khan, told AP at the main hospital in Kandahar city that two of his sons, ages 4 and 11, and his wife's brother were among the dead. "What kind of security are the foreign troops providing in Afghanistan?" he asked. Wedding parties in Afghanistan are segregated by gender, which explains why so many women and children could have died. Civilian deaths have long caused friction between Karzai's government and the U.S. and NATO. But following the U.S. operation in western Afghanistan in August, relations between Afghanistan and the United States were seriously damaged. Karzai called for a review of operations by U.S. forces in Afghan villages. An Afghan government commission found the Aug. 22 attack on the village of Aziziabad killed some 90 Afghan civilians–a finding backed by a preliminary U.N. report. The U.S. military at first said only 30 militants were killed and no civilians. But days later the military said up to seven civilians had died. However, after video of Azizabad emerged days later showing what appeared to be dozens of bodies, the U.S. appointed a U.S.-based one-star general to investigate. His report found the U.S. operation killed 33 civilians. The report said U.S. troops were justified in firing on the village because militants had first fired on them and wounded a U.S. soldier. Karzai, speaking on the grounds of the presidential palace in Kabul, said "race, color and ethnicity" will disappear as a factor in politics around the world because of Obama's election. He used the occasion to press the U.S. government to "take the fight (to) where the training centers and the resources of the terrorists are," a reference to Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. Obama has said that if he is elected, he could launch unilateral attacks on high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan as they become exposed and "if Pakistan cannot or will not act" against them.