A night raid carried out by US and Afghan troops led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity that NATO then tried to cover up, survivors told the Times of London. The Feb. 12 operation was a botched pre-dawn assault on a police officer's home outside Gardez, capital of Paktia province. In a statement after the raid titled "Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery," NATO claimed the force had found the women's bodies "tied up, gagged and killed" in a room. But more than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were US and Afghan gunmen. The identity and status of the soldiers is unknown. (London Times [2], March 13)
See our last posts on Afghanistan [3] and US atrocities [4].
Please leave a tip [5] or answer the Exit Poll [6].
