NOVANEWS
Anger erupts after Thursday drone attack leaves civilians dead and injured
– Jon Queally
Hamid Karzai has condemned the air strike that killed a child. (Photograph: S Sabawoon/EPA)As most Americans sat down to eat a large Thanksgiving feast on Thursday, a U.S. drone attack in Afghanistan left one child dead and two adult women injured as NATO forces claimed they were trying to kill a lone “known militant” riding on a motorbike in Helmand Province.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed outrage. The latest incident of civilian casualties comes as the Obama administration and Karzai government try to settle on terms for a Bilateral Security Agreement designed to lay out the conditions for the continued presence of U.S. military forces in the country after 2014.
Following news of the latest attack and the death of the Afghan child killed by the missile strike, Karzai said, “For as long as such arbitrary acts and oppression of foreign forces continue, the security agreement with the United States will not be signed.”
“This attack shows that American forces are not respecting the life and safety of Afghan people’s houses,” he continued. “For years, our innocent people have become victims of the war under the name of terrorism, and they have had no safety in their homes.”
According to the New York Times, a high-ranking US military commander called Karzai later Thursday to acknowledge the incident:
Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, made a late-night phone call to President Karzai on Thursday after the president’s criticism became public. “He talked to President Karzai directly, expressed deep regrets for the incident and any civilian casualties, and promised to convene an immediate joint investigation to determine all the facts of what happened,” a coalition spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.
Mr. Karzai vowed this week, at the conclusion of a loya jirga, or grand council, that he would cancel the security agreement completely if there was even one more raid that killed civilians.
