US, Afghan villagers differ over 15 killed in raid

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writers

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. coalition in Afghanistan opened an investigation into an overnight raid early Saturday that American commanders say killed 15 armed militants but that two Afghan officials say killed 11 civilians.

A detailed U.S. statement said multiple teams of militants fired on the coalition forces during a raid against a Taliban commander early Saturday in the eastern province of Laghman. The U.S. said a woman carrying a rocket-propelled grenade was among the 15 killed.

"We know the people who were killed were shooting at us," said Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan. "The people who were killed today were running around, maneuvering against our forces, and we killed them."

But Sayed Ahmad Safi, the spokesman for Laghman's governor, said that government intelligence reports indicated 11 of the dead were civilians, including three children and two females. Two of the dead were militants, he said.

Abdul Khaliq Hussaini, a member of parliament who represents Laghman, said he believed 16 people had been killed, including 11 civilians. The site of the raid — the village of Guloch — lies 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Kabul.

Julian said a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation had been launched.

Civilian deaths are a hugely sensitive topic between the Afghan government and the U.S. and NATO.

President Hamid Karzai last week told parliament that the U.S. and NATO have not heeded his calls to stop airstrikes in civilian areas. Karzai has recently sought to have more control over what kinds of activities U.S. and NATO forces can carry out.

The issue also sparks strong emotions among average Afghans and threatens to turn civilians against the international military mission.

"I'm ready to start jihad against the Americans," an unidentified Afghan man told a Kabul TV station during a protest Saturday in the capital of Laghman.

Earlier Saturday, Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, the head of the provincial council in Laghman, said village elders arrived at his office hours after the early morning operation to complain that the 15 killed were innocent civilians.

During a call from an Associated Press reporter, Rahmzai relayed questions to the village elders directly, who angrily shouted that they would swear on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, that all those killed were civilians. The elders claimed that women and children were among the dead.

The villagers told Rahmzai that they are shepherds and have no ties to militants.

Evaluating competing claims from the U.S. or NATO militaries and Afghan officials or villagers is extremely difficult. Journalists and human rights monitors usually cannot reach the site of a raid because the territory is too dangerous.

Afghan villagers have been known to exaggerate civilian death claims in order to receive more compensation from the U.S. military, and officials have said that insurgents sometimes force villagers to make false death claims.

But the U.S. military has also been known to not fully acknowledge when it killed civilians.

After a battle in August in the village of Azizabad, the U.S. military at first said no civilians were killed. A day later it said about five died, and eventually a more thorough U.S. investigation found 33 civilians were killed. The Afghan government and the U.N. said 90 civilians were killed.

The Afghan government recently sent NATO headquarters a draft agreement that would give Afghanistan more control over future NATO deployments in the country and would prohibit NATO troops from conducting searches of Afghan homes.