US bombing kills nine Afghan kids

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, December 07, 2003

US bombing kills nine Afghan kids

Nine Afghan children were killed along with a suspected Taliban terrorist in an air raid by US forces in a southern Afghan province, US military said Sunday in Kabul.

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Nine Afghan children were killed along with a suspected Taliban terrorist in an air raid by US forces in a southern Afghan province, US military said Sunday in Kabul.

The bombing by a US A-10 aircraft on Saturday morning in Ghazni province was targeted at a "known terrorist" hiding in the area, according to a statement issued by headquarters of the US-led coalition forces in Bagram Airbase, some 70 kilometers north of Kabul.

"Following the attack, coalition ground forces searching the area found the bodies of both the intended target and those of nine children nearby," the statement said.

A US military spokesman said in Bagram that the coalition regretted the loss of the children and an US military team had been sent to the site for an investigation.

The attack was on a village house near Ghazni city, the provincial capital about 150 kilometers southwest of Kabul.

Dozens of Afghan civilians, mostly villagers in border areas, had been mistakenly killed in several air bombing attacks by US forces in their hunting for guerrilla fighters of the ousted Taliban militia and their al-Qaeda allies in south and east Afghanistan since late 2001, when the Taliban regime was overthrown by a US-led campaign.

According to the US military statement, the suspected Taliban member killed in Saturday's attack was believed to be responsible for the killing of two foreign contractors working on a US-funded road reconstruction project in the area in October.

Meanwhile, two Indian engineers working for the same road project were kidnapped by unknown gunmen on Saturday in another province of south Afghanistan, an Afghan official confirmed.

The incident occurred just days after a Turkish road engineer was released by his Taliban kidnappers who adducted him in late October on the southern highway linking Kabul and Kandahar, former stronghold of the Taliban.

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