Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Granai: anatomy of a massacre

Morning Star Online/UK, Tuesday 18 August 2009

Ian Sinclair

On May 4 the US bombed the village of Granai in Farah province, Afghanistan, killing 140 civilians according to the Afghanistan government, including approximately 90 children.

It was the single largest loss of life caused by US/NATO forces since the 2001 invasion.

President Hamid Karzai denounced the air strikes as “unjustifiable and unacceptable,” hundreds of people demonstrated in Kabul and in Farah city there was a riot outside the governor’s office and traders closed their shops in protest.

The US military initially claimed the civilians had been killed by grenades hurled by Taliban fighters. These assertions were shown to be false by eyewitness accounts and were quickly withdrawn.

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