Official Line Uber Alles

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is over a day now that the official line about the bombing of the convoy
continues to be held even in the face of counter-evidence from the actual
area that contradicts it. Obviously a village was virtually destroyed as
well as the convoy hit.
   Karzai will check with his American friends to find out what happened.
Wow, he is obviously the right choice for leader!

Cheers, Ken Hanly


Saturday December 22 4:23 PM ET

Locals Reject U.S. Account of Afghan Convoy Attack
By Mohammad Bashir

ASMANI KILAI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Local Afghans contested U.S.
assertions that its planes had attacked a convoy of al Qaeda leaders,
telling Reuters at the scene on Saturday the dozens of dead were innocent
villagers and tribal elders.

Residents of Asmani Kilai in eastern Paktia province said the strikes,
lasting seven hours from Thursday night into Friday, killed 50 to 60 people
and destroyed 15 vehicles from a convoy of tribal elders bound for Kabul for
the inauguration on Saturday of the interim government led by Hamid Karzai.

About 10 houses and a mosque were also destroyed and several villagers not
with the convoy were also killed, they said.

However, U.S. officials insisted the convoy had opened fire on U.S. aircraft
just before it was bombed and had been carrying leaders of Osama bin Laden's
al Qaeda network.

Earlier reports said 65 people were killed.

``The people who got hit were going to congratulate Karzai on the transfer
of power,'' villager Khodai Noor told Reuters Television in the first
account of the bombing from the scene.

``There are no members of al Qaeda or supporters of bin Laden here,'' he
added, suggesting a local warlord might deliberately have misinformed U.S.
forces about the convoy to settle a score.

A further 15 people were wounded and had been taken to a hospital six hours
drive away near the border with Pakistan, the villagers said. The bodies of
those killed were swiftly removed in line with Islamic custom for burial by
relatives, they said.

The United States has said it is investigating the attack but that its
initial findings were that the dead were members of the ousted Taliban or
fighters from bin Laden's al Qaeda group.

``I will tell you, having been in touch with my headquarters, that at this
point we believe it was a good target,'' U.S. General Tommy Franks, the
commander of U.S. forces in the region, told reporters in Kabul after Karzai
was sworn in.

In the United States, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command told Reuters in
response to the accounts from Asmani Kilai: ``We confirm again that the
convoy was a military target.''

But a Pentagon spokesman later told Reuters U.S. military officials had
reached the spot to look into the villagers' claims: ``I would not call it
an investigation. It is part of a process we always carry out when there are
reports like this.''

In Kabul, Franks said he had also received reports that a U.S. aircraft had
been fired on from the convoy.

Villagers contested that account, saying the convoy had set out for the
Afghan capital from the town of Khost with tribal elders who were not
carrying weapons.

DOUBLE-CROSSED?

Villager Noor alleged the convoy had been diverted from its intended route
by a hostile local commander, whom he named as Pacha Khan. He alleged that
Khan had then told the Americans that the vehicles were carrying al Qaeda
members.

The village, in the Ozi district of Paktia province, sits on barren hills
and its houses were reduced to rubble.

Six wrecked cars, their bodywork riddled with bullets and shrapnel, stood on
the track. Shrapnel and the remains of spent ordnance littered the dirt.

The villagers said more vehicles had been hit further along the route in air
strikes they said occurred between 9.00 p.m. on Thursday and 4.00 a.m. on
Friday.

``Why is this tyranny happening to us?'' asked Haji Khyal Khan, who said
five members of his family had been killed.

Locals picked through the rubble of their homes retrieving what possessions
they could, including a tattered carpet.

``There were no terrorists. They destroyed a whole village and we've lost
everything,'' said villager Agha Mohammad.

Karzai, speaking at a news conference in Kabul before the villagers'
accounts emerged, said he would check reports of the attack but did not
believe tribal chiefs had been bombed.

``I will definitely check that with our American friends, but I don't think
it's true because the first information I got was there was no such
bombing,'' he said. ``If they were al Qaeda members then they were not
tribal chiefs.''

One U.S. embassy official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said: ``We apparently had evidence that this convoy had al Qaeda forces. We
circled the convoy.

``I'm told by Centcom (Central Command) that we were fired on twice by the
convoy using anti-aircraft missiles, which they took as a hostile act and
proceeded to attack the convoy.''

CALL FOR INQUIRY

But Abdullah Jan, a spokesman for the shura (council) of the Nayazain tribe
in Khost, urged Karzai to order an inquiry, the private, Pakistan-based
Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.

The victims included Maulvi Mian Jan who was traveling to Kabul at Karzai's
invitation, AIP quoted Jan as saying.

``He was a tribal chief. There was no Talib nor any al Qaeda fighter in our
convoy. Why was it bombed?'' he told AIP.

AIP said the dead included tribal elders and former mujahideen commanders.
It said one of the dead was ``commander'' Mohammad Ibrahim, a brother of
well-known former mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Haqqani fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s but
switched sides to become the tribal affairs minister in the Taliban
government.

A local resident told the BBC that the dead included Naeem Kochi, head of
the Ahmadzai tribe, a man who has changed sides frequently and had been
linked with the Taliban in the past.

(With additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider)