Swathed in bandages, immersed in hatred, Agah Lalai has nothing but contempt for the foreign forces that killed his family.

“Why do Nato lie to us?” the 25-year-old Afghan asked from his hospital bed in Kandahar yesterday. “They say they can differentiate between the Taleban and civilians, but they destroyed my family, my home, my life. I have nothing left.

“Nato cannot rule us like this. So long as there is just one 40-day-old boy remaining alive Afghans will fight against the people who do this to us.”

Mr Lalai’s village, a settlement in the Sarwan Qala valley north of Sangin, which is patrolled by British troops, was bombed by aircraft on the night of May 8 after fighting between the Taleban and foreign soldiers.

Crawling wounded from the wreckage of his home, Mr Lalai discovered that his grandfather, grandmother, wife, father, three brothers and four sisters had died in the bombing. The youngest victim was 8, the oldest 80. Only Mr Lalai’s mother and two sons, aged 5 and 3, survived. Both boys were wounded. Yet the forces that wiped out his family were not British, nor those of any other Nato unit. The airstrikes were called in by American Special Forces operating with their own rules of engagement on a mission totally devolved from Nato command in Afghanistan.

At least 21 Afghan civilians died in the bombing of Gurmaw, Mr Lalai’s village, the latest in a series of airstrike incidents resulting in innocent deaths. The casualties have caused widespread revulsion among Afghans and have been condemned by President Karzai. They have undermined the Nato mission in Afghanistan and stirred unease among Nato countries.

Attempts to improve the situation and minimise future casualties are being stymied by American secrecy and reluctance to enter into a dialogue with United Nations human rights officials.

Though America is the largest troop contributor to Nato forces in Afghanistan (ISAF), with 15,000 personnel serving as part of a 37,500-strong force in the country, it also has its own separate force engaged there. About 11,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan operate under their own command on Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) to destroy Taleban and al-Qaeda forces. It is these units that have been predominantly involved in the recent civilian killings.

In March US Marines killed at least 19 civilians after a suicide attack on their convoy in eastern Afghanistan. In late April more than 50 civilians died after American special forces called in airstrikes in the west. The bombing of Gurmaw involved similar OEF forces.

“We can talk about these issues with ISAF,” Richard Bennett, Chief Human Rights Officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Tuesday, after a delegation of UN officials met Nato commanders and local leaders in Kandahar to examine ways of preventing further tragedies. “But the American OEF command structure remains opaque. We haven’t even been able to talk or engage with the OEF.”

Though Nato is far from clean of civilian blood, and has been the focus of several reports concerning Afghan civilians shot dead by passing convoys or blown up in airstrikes, it has been relatively transparent in sharing its investigation results with the UN and tailoring its operations in an attempt to avoid repeat scenarios. UNAMA estimates that an average of 90 to 100 civilians are killed each month in Afghanistan: 50 per cent by foreign troops in airstrikes and shootings, and 50 per cent by the Taleban in suicide bombings and executions.

Though the present scale of these civilian killings comes nowhere close to ranking with those conducted by Soviet forces during their occupation of the country, they have nevertheless caused disillusionment among Afghan officials. “When the Russians came they came as invaders and we expected these things,” said Abdul Quad-ar Noorzai, senior official of the leading Afghan human rights organisation in Kandahar. “But Nato and the coalition came as guests to bring us peace and stability. Our guests should not kill our people.”

Part of the OEF’s raison d’être was that it could provide a tough combat force separate from Nato’s stabilisation mission and was prepared to operate in areas where the more gun-shy nationalities among Nato troops would refuse to go. However, for Afghans caught up in the recent bombings it is irrelevant whether their attackers were OEF or Nato.

Nor can they distinguish between the two. “We used to call all the foreigners here ‘Americans’,” Mr Lalai said. “Now we call them all ‘Nato’.”

Caught in the crossfire

January 2007 Afghan police claim 13 civilians killed in Nato airstrike in Helmand. Nato denies the accusation

February 2007 Canadian troops shoot a beggar and an Afghan police officer after their convoy is ambushed in Kandahar

March 2007 19 people killed and 50 wounded after Marine Special Forces fire on civilians following a suicide attack in Shinwar, eastern Afghanistan. US military apologise and pay compensation to the families

April 2007 Reports that 51 civilians died in separate attacks in Herat throughout the month. The US say that it is investigating

* Associated Press estimates 259 civilian deaths this year

Source: Agencies

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