*sigh*

my cousin Pete is at Ft. Bragg right now, preparing to head to Afghanistan. West Point grad, reservist, father to 3-yr-old Shane -- of course he got called up.

more later. read on.

U.S. Strike Mistakenly Kills Nine Children
Residents of Afghan Village Say Terrorist Suspect
Still Alive
By AIJAZ RAHI, AP

Hats and shoes littered a blood-stained field in this
desolate Afghan village Sunday, a day after U.S.
warplanes - targeting a terror suspect - mistakenly
killed nine children.

Clothes of the nine children killed in a U.S.
airstrike were placed on their graves Sunday in
eastern Afghanistan.

American officials offered their regrets Sunday and
said they were ''deeply saddened'' by the deaths. The
United Nations called for an investigation. And the
Afghan government urged the U.S.-led coalition hunting
Taliban and al-Qaida fighters to make sure such an
accident is never repeated.

In Hutala on Sunday, a line of fresh graves marked the
tragedy, and village men stood quietly by a stream in
a dusty field where the children had been playing.
They seemed as bewildered as they were angry.

''First they fire their rockets. Then they say it was
a mistake,'' Haji Amir Mohammed told The Associated
Press, as dozens of American soldiers sent to
investigate the incident offered condolences or lay in
the warming winter sun. ''How can we forgive them?''

Villagers said the young victims had been playing with
marbles in a dusty field beside mud homes in this
impoverished valley, some 150 miles southwest of
Kabul, when the A-10 ground attack aircraft homed in.

Military officials said Sunday they had no idea
children were in the area when they decided to attack.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the suspect
targeted and killed was a former Taliban commander
named Mullah Wazir, adding that he was ''deeply
saddened'' by the ''tragic loss of innocent life.''

Khalilzad said the former commander ''had bragged of
his personal involvement in attacks on innocent Afghan
citizens,'' including aid groups and Afghans working
on the Kabul-Kandahar road, a site of frequent
violence.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the
coalition, told the AP in Hutala that it had appeared
to the pilot of the aircraft that ''just that person
that we wanted, that terrorist, was in the field. So
we fired on him.''

Troops discovered the children's bodies after rushing
to the scene to verify that they had got Wazir. U.S.
officers flew in Sunday to apologize to village
elders, Hilferty said.

But residents were adamant that the military had acted
on bogus intelligence. Many said the man killed was
not Wazir, and that the former district commander
under the Taliban had left the village some days
before the attack.

''There are no terrorists, no Taliban or al-Qaida
here,'' said Abdul Majid Farooqi. ''Just poor
people.''

The 11,500 U.S.-led troops hunting Taliban and
al-Qaida remnants in south and east Afghanistan often
are supported by air power, and there have been a
string of military mishaps.

The worst occurred in July 2002, when Afghan officials
said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and
117 wounded by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship in
Uruzgan province, which borders Ghazni province.

On April 9, a U.S. warplane mistakenly bombed a home
in the eastern town of Shkin, killing 11 civilians.
Another air strike in Nuristan province in eastern
Afghanistan on Oct. 31 reportedly killed at least
eight civilians in a house.

''This incident, which follows similar incidents, adds
to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country,''
Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. Special Representative to
Afghanistan, said in Kabul.

The Afghan government said it fully supported fighting
terrorism but urged the U.S.-led coalition to ''be
very careful not to repeat such tragedies.''

Also Sunday, officials said two Turkish engineers and
an Afghan had been kidnapped along the road being
build between the capital, Kabul and the city of
Kandahar, bringing to five the number of workers
abducted in Afghanistan in the last three days.

Taliban attacks have plagued the flagship road
construction project. Four workers were killed in
August, and de-mining operations along the road were
suspended last month after a carjacking. A Turkish
engineer was abducted along the road Oct. 30 and
released after one month.

The Taliban, whose hard-line Islamic regime was ousted
from power in a U.S.-led offensive in late 2001, have
stepped up attacks in recent months, targeting foreign
aid workers and perceived allies of the coalition.

International aid agencies have reduced operations in
Afghanistan's south and east due to escalating
violence, including the Nov. 16 drive-by shooting
death of a French U.N. aid worker.


12-07-03 17:32 EST