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Air strikes killed about 40 civilians: Karzai |
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Updated at:
2045
PST, Wednesday, November 05, 2008 |
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KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday around 40 civilians, including women and children, were killed in international air strikes that hit a village in southern Afghanistan.
Villagers had earlier said around 36 civilians were killed in Monday's strike, which hit a wedding party, but Afghan authorities were unable to give a number of casualties.
The president "condemned the air strike which killed around 40 and wounded another 28 civilians in Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province," a statement from his office said.
Reports said the dead included women and children, the statement said. "Safeguarding the life and property of the people of Afghanistan is one of the basic responsibilities of the Afghan government," the president said.
"Once again we remind the coalition forces that by any way possible they should avoid civilian casualties and not allow the killing and injury of innocent people of Afghanistan for the sake of some criminal terrorists."
Karzai said in the statement that Afghan villages were "not the place to fight terrorism" and would yield no success in efforts to defeat insurgents.
Instead, the coalition forces should "focus the war on terrorism on eradicating their nests, their training centres and the sources of equipment," the president said. |
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ISSN 1563-9479 
