Collateral damage VII – AC-130s blast civilians in Kandahar

Eye witnesses inform western journalists about AC-130 Spectre aircraft deliberately strafing civilian targets in Kandahar.

Kandahar, the base of the Taleban regime, is an obvious strategic target in the just war against international terrorism. Kandahar is also a home for 200,000 innocent Afghani civilians.

A group of Western journalists was escorted into Kandahar on October 31st to hear eye-witness accounts of collateral damage, until now unreported, and to view the destruction first-hand.

Maji Mohammad, a 32-year-old resident of Kandahar, told the group that his uncle had been killed on October 27th at Lungar, 2 kilometres from the centre of Kandahar in what appears to have been an attack on civilian areas by a ground-attack AC-130 Spectre aircraft. “I saw the aircraft which was flying low, very slowly. It was shooting continuously”.

Dr. Syed Abbas informed the group that earlier on October 31st a bombing raid on the Red Crescent hospital and neighbouring houses had left 13 dead and five doctors injured.

Another resident, Mohammad Ali, claimed “It is an atrocity. The Americans attack neither the Taleban not Bin Laden. They attack residential areas”.

The group of journalists confirmed these reports and the words of a Taleban guard, who claimed that “We brought you here so that you could see with your own eyes that there is no military or Taleban base here. Only civilians”.

In the words of a resident of Kandahar, “Why do they kill innocent civilians? They are forcing us to side with the Taleban”.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru LISBON PORTUGAL