Afghans seek U.S. damage compensation

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Originally published Sunday, April 14, 2002

GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- Every morning, a forlorn procession of the bereft and the defeated gathers at the gates of the pale yellow governor's compound in this weather-beaten provincial outpost.

There are widows and orphans and stooped old men, all of them bearing tales of misery and loss written in flowing Persian script on slips of paper. These are sullen, bitter people.

"They are so angry, angry at the Americans," said Gen. Sahib Jan Loodin Alozai, the deputy governor of Paktia province, who processes the complaints.

Nearly a month has passed since United States-led Operation Anaconda ended here in the silver-capped mountains of southeastern Afghanistan. Now the U.S. citizens in the area are targets of residual hate and resentment in a province where support for the Taliban and al-Qaida remains strong.

Some petitioners claim that U.S. airstrikes killed their relatives. Others claim that their homes were destroyed by U.S. bombs or missiles. Farmers complain that U.S. soldiers have blocked access to their fields, ruining their spring planting season.

This is Pashtun country. Many people here are hostile to foreigners and sympathetic to the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. In their view, the U.S. is a Christian invader who installed an interim government in Kabul dominated by the Pashtuns' ethnic rivals, Tajiks from the north.

Even with the enemy on the run, the U.S. and its Afghan allies are confronting a wellspring of sympathy for the Taliban that allows the guerrillas to feed and arm themselves while they regroup. Unsigned leaflets, known as "shabnama," or "night letters," have appeared urging Afghans to kill or kidnap foreign -- especially American -- journalists, soldiers or aid workers.

They site a couple of reasons for anger at the United States:

- On Dec. 20, U.S. warplanes killed 50 to 60 people in a convoy in Paktia. Survivors said the victims were tribal elders headed to Kabul for the inauguration of interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai. The Pentagon said the dead were Taliban who had opened fire on the planes.

- On March 6, the Pentagon acknowledged, women and children were among 14 people killed by a U.S. airstrike on an al-Qaida convoy fleeing the Shahi Kot valley. The civilians were family members traveling with fighters.

"There were women and children in that convoy," Sayed Aminullah, an Afghan worker for CARE International in Gardez, said of the March attack. "You don't drop bombs on them, whatever the reason."

Local officials claim, variously, that a dozen, 50, or more than 100 civilians were killed by U.S. ordnance during Operation Anaconda. Alozai, the deputy governor, said he had processed 12 death claims but anticipates more. Townspeople say the numbers are much higher. With bodies buried and witnesses dispersed, an accurate total probably will never emerge.

Another local CARE official, Mohammed Rahim, says the homes of 200 to 300 people from 50 to 60 families were destroyed by U.S. warplanes. Most of those homes were being used as military posts by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who had evicted villagers in the Shahi Kot valley, they said.

The families have besieged the governor's office with demands for U.S. compensation, Alozai said. He said he relayed their complaints to "Mister Mike," his U.S. military contact in Gardez, but received no reply. U.S. officials say the State Department and Pentagon are studying the issue but have reached no decision.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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