The Farah Airstrike Coverup

By Steve Hynd

A report by the UK's Channel Four News, via the Real News Network, alleges a coverup over May 4th airstrikes in Farah province, Afghanistan, which the US military says killed scores of Taliban fighters and "only" 26 civilians and local villagers say killed around 140 innocents. The report includes previously unseen footage, taken by a cellphone, showing at least a score of children's bodies recovered from the rubble.

The US military had originally tried to blame Taliban grenades for civilian casualties, despite the utter devestation caused by dropping 2,000 lb bombs. Villagers who survived insist that by the time the bombs fell the Taliban had already fled the area.

Gareth Porter also accuses the US military of "covering up the most damaging facts surrounding the incident", and for much the same reasons as the Channel Four report.

The declassified "executive summary" of the report on the bombing issued last Friday admitted that mistakes had been made in the use of airpower in that incident. However, it omitted key details which would have revealed the self-serving character of the U.S. command�s previous claims blaming the "Taliban" � the term used for all insurgents fighting U.S. forces - for the civilian deaths from the airstrikes.

...the report indicates that the airstrikes referred to as the "second B1-B strike" and the "third B-1B strike" caused virtually all of the civilian deaths. The report�s treatment of those two strikes is notable primarily for what it omits with regard to information on casualties rather than for what it includes.

It indicates that the ground force commander judged the movement of a "second large group" � again at night without clear identification of whether they were military or civilian � indicated that they were "enemy fighters massing and rearming to attack friendly forces" and directed the bombing of a target to which they had moved.

The report reveals that two 500-pound bombs and two 2,000-pound bombs were dropped on the target, not only destroying the building being targeted but three other nearby houses as well.

In contrast to the report�s claim regarding the earlier strike, the description of the second airstrike admits that the "destruction may have resulted in civilian casualties". Even more important, however, it says nothing about any evidence that there were Taliban fighters killed in the strike � thus tacitly admitting that the casualties were in fact civilians.

The third strike is also described as having been prompted by another decision by the ground commander that a third group moving in the dark away from the firefight was "another Taliban element". A single 2,000-pound bomb was dropped on a building to which the group had been tracked, again heavily damaging a second house nearby.

Again the report offers no evidence suggesting that there were any "Taliban" killed in the strike, in contrast to the first airstrike.

By these signal omissions, aimed at avoiding the most damaging facts in the incident, the report confirms that no insurgent fighters were killed in the airstrikes which killed very large numbers of civilians. The report thus belies a key propaganda line that the U.S. command had maintained from the beginning � that the Taliban had deliberately prevented people from moving from their houses so that civilian casualties would be maximised.

Despite admissions that the military's own rules of engagement were not followed in the airstrikes - particularly in not checking whether targets were civilian or not, no one has been held culpable in any way. Yet by not checking, then bombing civilians, a clear war crime was committed.