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An Afghan man lifts the head of a child who along with 11 other civilians died during U.S. air raids in Kabul on October 28, 2001, witnesses said. A man and his seven children were killed when a bomb crashed through their home, according to the family's mother. (Sayed Salahuddin/Reuters)
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Sunday October 28, 2001
U.S. Bombers Kill Kabul Family, Bus of Refugees
KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. bomb flattened a flimsy mud-brick home in Kabul Sunday blowing apart seven children as they ate breakfast with their father. The blast shattered a neighbor's house killing another two children in one of the most gruesome scenes of Washington's three-week-old bombing of the Afghan capital.
U.S. bombers killed a total of 12 civilians in two early morning raids on the city.
Two civilians were also killed when U.S. planes mistakenly bombed a village north of Kabul in territory controlled by the opposition Northern Alliance Saturday, residents said.
In Kabul, the sounds of grief echoed down shattered alleys.
``What shall I do now? Look at their savagery,'' wailed the wife of Gul Ahmad as the bodies of her children were pulled from the smoldering wreckage of her home and wrapped in shrouds.
``They killed all of my children and husband,'' she said.
``The whole world is responsible for this tragedy. Why are they not taking any decision to stop this?'' she asked.
Sobs racked the body of a middle-aged man as he cradled the head of his baby, its dust-covered body dressed only in a blue diaper, lying beside the bodies of three other children, their colorful clothes layered with debris from their shattered homes.
The houses were in a residential area called Qalaye Khatir near a hill where the hard-line Taliban militia had placed an anti-aircraft gun. Men digging graves for the children were angry. ``Your filming makes no difference. Nobody runs it. Just get lost,'' one said to a Reuters reporter.
Two other civilians died when a bomb hit the minibus in which they were attempting to flee Kabul with their family.
Two villagers were killed and 10 people injured when U.S. warplanes mistakenly bombed the tiny hamlet of Ghanikhel in territory held by the opposition Northern Alliance near their frontline positions facing the Taliban Saturday.
The blast turned the mood in the village against the United States.
``The Americans come here, drop their bombs on Afghanistan and kill innocent people,'' an Afghan cleric, Kamaruddin, said at the funeral of one victim Sunday. ``We cannot condone this, although we ourselves are guilty,''
Kamaruddin shouted, as 100 men crouched in the morning sun in the bleak cemetery just outside the village. ``We were the ones to invite them here.''