Kabul, Afghanistan — In a sharp criticism of U.S. bombing, a United Nations representative said Thursday that dozens of civilians were killed Saturday in three waves of attack by B-52 bombers on an eastern Afghanistan village.
Although it was based upon unverified allegations, the U.N. criticism came amid a growing number of calls by Afghan leaders for the United States to limit its aerial attacks if it cannot prevent harm to civilians.
Shaltaloo Khan removes the rubble of the destroyed house owned by his brother in the village of Madakhel, about 25 miles east of Jalalabad in northeast Afghanistan. The village was bombed in November by U.S. planes, allegedly killing some 80 villagers. A United Nations official on Thursday criticized the United States for pre-dawn attacks Saturday on another Afghan village that killed at least 52 civilians, including women and children.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Washington, defended U.S. bombing decisions and said: "I can't imagine there's been a conflict in history in which there has been less collateral damage, less unintended consequences."
The U.N. criticism came from Stephanie Bunker, a U.N. spokeswoman in Kabul. She said that pre-dawn attacks Saturday on the village of Qalaye Niazi, 3 miles north of the city of Gardez in Qalaye province, had killed at least 52 civilians, including women and children.
Among them, she said, were 10 to 20 villagers who had been attempting to flee to safety, as well as six people who had arrived from a nearby village to help the survivors of the initial wave of bombs.
Many of the victims perished inside five large residential compounds that were devastated by the airstrike, Bunker said.
The U.N.'s information, she added, was based on one credible source from "someone from the area" of the village. She said that U.N. staffers have not visited the village to verify the allegations and that the report was "unconfirmed."
Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, planned to discuss the bombing with American military officials, she said.
"The U.N. has repeatedly called on the coalition forces to protect all civilians in the military campaign," Bunker said. "(Brahimi) is very concerned about the allegations that civilians are being killed."
After reports surfaced early this week that as many as 100 civilians were killed in Qalaye Niazi, U.S. officials said the bombing was "justified" because the village apparently contained a Taliban-controlled arms depot.
And senior Afghan intelligence officials said the village provided a haven for al-Qaida and Taliban stragglers. A separate U.S. airstrike last week in the region killed Qari Ahmadullah, the former Taliban intelligence chief known for brutally torturing prisoners, according to the officials.
But Bunker said Taliban and al-Qaida fighters were never in the village.
The American military has said repeatedly that it has been striking only legitimate military targets, but sentiment is building in Afghanistan for the United States to restrict the bombing.
Interim government leader Hamid Karzai has promised some tribal leaders that he will urge the United States to halt bombing in their regions.
Afghan intelligence and U.S. military officials believe hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are still scattered in Paktia province, where Gardez is located, and other parts of Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said that "nobody wants to see a single civilian death."
But he said that U.S. war planners have shown "care and attentiveness" in selecting targets and have tried, where possible, to use laser-guided weapons specifically designed to limit collateral damage.
He noted three December incidents in which "questions have been raised" about civilian casualties and said that, in each case, American planes had struck at military targets verified by more than one intelligence source.
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