Monday, 30 May 2011
An Afghan man (R) holds the hand of a casualty after a blast near a foreign base in Herat. (File Photo)
Two people were killed and 26 wounded in twin suicide attacks in the Afghan city of Herat Monday, including at a compound where an Italian-led reconstruction team is based, as foreign forces in Afghanistan apologized for the deaths of nine Afghan civilians.
“There was a suicide attack at the gate of Herat PRT and a second in the city centre. Two people were killed and another 26 were wounded,” said Farooq Kohistani, Heart’s criminal investigation chief.
Gunshots were still being heard near the PRT, Agence-France Presse said, while local television pictures showed extensive damage at the scene.
An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman for the western region of Afghanistan earlier said there had been an explosion in Herat but could not give more details.
Local television pictures showed at least two blown-up cars in front of the PRT and car alarms going off amid chaotic scenes.
The attack was claimed by the Taliban. Its spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP: “Our mujahideen are working on the operation in Herat.”
“There have been explosions inside the compound as well as outside the PRT,” he said.
Historic Herat, close to the Afghan border with Iran, is seen as one of the safest areas in Afghanistan and is among the first wave of seven places due to pass from foreign to Afghan security control from around July.
PRTs are typically joint military and civilian operations that work on trying to help build up Afghan government capacity in a province. There are 28 of them in total working in provinces across Afghanistan.
There are nearly 4,000 Italian troops serving in Afghanistan as part of a strong international force fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.
The war in Afghanistan has been running for nearly 10 years.
It started when a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks for harboring Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan this month.
Foreign forces in Afghanistan, meanwhile, issued an apology Monday for the deaths of nine Afghan civilians in Helmand province after President Hamid Karzai criticized an air strike which he said killed 14.
A statement from Major General John Toolan, ISAF commander for the southwest region of Afghanistan, said: “On behalf of the coalition, I offer our heartfelt apologies to the families and friends of those killed.”
The apology came after Karzai’s office issued what it said was a “last warning” to US and NATO-led troops over civilian casualties following Saturday’s incident.
Provincial officials also said that 14 people were killed in the strike, among them five girls, seven boys and two women.
The statement from Toolan said: “On behalf of the coalition, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force General (David) Petraeus... I want to offer my sincere apologies for the nine civilians who were killed during the incident in Now Zad District, Helmand province, that occurred on 28 May.”
He said that the incident had happened after a coalition patrol was attacked by insurgents, resulting in the death of a marine.
“Subsequently, the five insurgents occupied and continued to attack again from a compound and in the ensuing battle an airstrike was called to neutralize the threat,” he added.
He said a full investigation was ongoing and that ISAF would “ensure that we make amends with the families in accordance with Afghan culture.”
The mistaken killing of civilians by foreign forces, usually during air strikes or night-time raids, is a major source of friction between President Karzai and his Western backers, according to Reuters.
It has complicated efforts to win support from ordinary Afghans for an increasingly unpopular war.
The governor of Helmand province, where the air strike was called in, said the bomb killed 14 civilians, two of them women and the remainder children. Bereaved relatives brought the bodies of young children to the provincial capital to protest.
The Helmand governor said in a statement that seven boys and five girls were among the dead and three other children wounded.
Bereaved male relatives cradled the bodies of several young children wrapped in bloody sheets and placed side to side, and brought them in the back of a truck to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, Reuters television pictures showed.
“My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed ... the Taliban were far away from my home, why was my house bombed?” relative Noor Agha told Reuters.
On Saturday, Mr. Karzai ordered the Defense Ministry to take control of night raids, saying Afghan troops should be carrying out the sensitive operations themselves.
Under a plan agreed by NATO leaders, foreign troops will begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghan troops from July, with a plan to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign troops, violence in Afghanistan last year reached its deadliest phase since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.
The Taliban this month announced the start of their “spring offensive,” vowing to attack foreign and Afghan troops and government officials.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
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