Kabul | Sunday
US warplanes carried out punishing new raids on Afghan cities on Sunday, with one attack on Kabul killing at least 10 civilians including eight children.
One bomb devastated three homes in a poor part of the Afghan capital.
A couple and six of their children were killed in one house and two children next door, residents told AFP at the scene.
Badly mutilated bodies were lined up outside and relatives of the dead angrily condemned the US raids that started on October 7 in a bid to force the Taliban to hand over accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
It was the second bombing blunder in a weekend of some of the heaviest raids of the military campaign in Afghanistan, with at least 20 bombs falling on Kabul on Friday night and Saturday morning.
A stray US bomb killed a woman and injured seven other people in the village of Ganikhel in territory controlled by Afghan opposition forces, residents said on Sunday. The bomb destroyed two houses in the village 80 kilometers northeast of Kabul.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency said at least three other people were killed in raids on the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat in the west, the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the east.
After a quiet night, raids on Kabul started again Sunday morning and one bomb fell on Qala-e-Khater, a poor part of the Char Qala district near the centre of the Afghan capital.
Ten people living in three houses were killed, said residents. Ahib Dad, a 45-year-old father-of-four, held the body of his dead baby son in his arms as he told of the attack at 7:00 am (0230 GMT).
”I heard the sound of the plane and I came out to see which way it was going. Suddenly it bombed our home.
”I lost two of my children. Two others are in hospital with my wife. I have lost my home. My only hope now is God.”
Gul Ahmed and his wife and three of their sons and three daughters were killed in a house next door, residents said.
Only the couple’s 16-year-old son, Jawad, who was taken to hospital, and two other relatives, survived the blast. One of the dead children was a baby son another a girl of about 18 months.
Another daughter who did not live in the house said: ”We lost everything. Curse America which destroyed our family. I lost my father, I lost my mother, I lost my brothers and sisters.”
Kavim Ali lived in the third house that was destroyed. By some stroke of fortune all of his family survived.
”Now we are waiting for the graves to be dug to bury our neighbours. Then we will pray for them at the mosque,” he said.
The mud-brick houses in northeast Kabul are at the bottom of a hill. Residents said there was no obvious Taliban target for the US air force nearby.
Old women and men mourned over the victims and tried to cover the dismembered bodies with clothing before they were taken to a nearby mosque.
One man said: ”These are infidels, they want to eliminate Muslims and Islam. There was nothing to be bombed in this house.”
Four bombs were heard in all and the AIP news agency said US planes also targeted Kabul airport.
It said one person was killed in a raid on Mazar-i-Sharif, near the airport at the Taliban stronghold which is a particular target of the Afghan opposition alliance.
Two people were killed in Kandahar, which has been badly hit by three weeks of US raids, said AIP. It added that there was a fire around a Taliban base at Qishla Jadeed but gave no details on the extent of damage.
In Herat, the US raids also concentrated on an army base.
US planes flew over Jalalabad overnight but dropped only one bomb near Darunta, eight kilometers west of the city, AIP said. – Sapa-AFP