[Richard]

I remember the hoopla when it happened - and then it got lost amongst all the other events of the time - mainly the elections for us. Kinda sounds like it was everybody's mess in that one - a s**t happens scenario at its worst - and a reminder of just how difficult it can be when caught in the middle of a multi-national muddle.

Richard's $.02

Tribe rivalry triggered deadly civilian strikes, presidential spokesman says

A rival tribe fed coalition forces the false information that led to the US air-strikes which killed up to 90 civilians in a village in western Afghanistan, a spokesman for the president told a foreign news agency.

"There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces," Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, said on Sunday to an AP reporter.

The strikes, he said, failed to kill a single Taliban fighter.

Police have arrested three men for supplying the US-led coalition with false information before the bombing of a village in Herat’s Shindand district on August 22.

Hamidzada told AP that the bombing put a strain on US-Afghan relations.

The UN backed claims that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed by the US-led operation, a figure strongly denied by the US army, which said only seven civilians and 35 militants had died.

The operation hit Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members, which is why the US recovered guns during the operation, Hamidzada said.

The US has said the raid targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq, but villagers of Azizabad say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.

An Afghan parliamentarian said Tawakil is in the protective custody of US forces but the coalition has declined to comment.

"How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces," Hamidzada said.

He said not "a single Taliban" was killed.

"So it was a total disaster, and it made it even worse when there were denials, total denials."

Video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, rubbishing the American military’s claims.

The US said it would send a one-star general from the United States to investigate the strike.

Just before the strike, villagers had gathered for a memorial ceremony in Azizabad to honour a tribal leader named Timor Shah, who was allegedly killed by Tawakil, the rival tribesman, about eight months ago.

Villagers said families had travelled to Azizabad from around the region for the ceremony, one of the reasons why so many children were killed.

http://quqnoos.com/index.php?option=...k=view&id=1605