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News :: Miscellaneous |
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American Bombs Kill or Wound at Least 120 at Wedding Today |
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by fannt
(No verified email address) |
01 Jul 2002
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KABUL - At least 120 members of an Afghan wedding party were either killed or wounded when a U.S. plane bombed a village in the central province of Uruzgon |
on Monday, 105 miles northeast of the southern city of Kandahar, residents said.
The bombing happened at 1.00 a.m. on Monday in a rugged region, residents told the local Pashtu service of the BBC.
"There was no-one to help last night," resident Abdul Saboor told the BBC. "We managed to transfer some of the wounded to Kandahar in the morning. Some of the foreigners' choppers also came to help.
"There are no Taliban or al Qaeda or Arabs here. These people were all civilians, women and children."
The International Security Assistance Force, responsible for security in the capital Kabul, 170 miles to the north, told Reuters it had contacted the U.S. liaison office which had heard nothing of any attack.
But Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the local Bakhtar Information Agency the "sudden attack" happened in the Dehrawud district of Uruzgon province.
"We are trying to organize aid and a commission has gone there headed by the ministry of frontiers affairs," he said.
Residents told the local BBC service between 120 and 150 people were either killed or wounded.
The United States launched air strikes against Afghanistan last year against the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York, and the group's Taliban protectors.
There have been several reports of the United States mistakenly attacking civilian targets since Washington's bombing offensive began.
In May, the U.S. army rejected reports it had mistakenly attacked a wedding party after the private Afghan Islamic Press reported that U.S. planes had pounded the village of Bul Khil in Khost province after mistaking traditional firing at a wedding for an attack. |
