Taliban execution attempt bombed

NY Times:

The United States military said Friday that it had carried out an airstrike on two Taliban commanders during “a sizable meeting” of insurgents in a remote region of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, but that it could not be sure the men had been killed.

Local officials said that at least 18 Afghans were wounded in the attack.

A large number of the Taliban had gathered for a public execution near a shrine in the Baghran district and that members of the public were also present at the time of the bombing, 4 p.m. on Thursday, they said.

“The people say there were many people there,” the provincial police chief, Muhammad Hussain Andiwal, said in a telephone interview. “The Taliban were also in great numbers; some 16 to 17 vehicles belonging to the Taliban were present at the scene. There must be heavy casualties to the Taliban.”

“We have information from the wounded people who were brought to Bost Hospital in Lashkar Gah that the Taliban brought two men accused of spying and they were going to execute them publicly, and they forced the people to come and watch them,” the police chief said. “I don’t know the exact number of civilian casualties.”

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The United States military released a statement from Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, saying that it had information that two “notorious” Taliban commanders were at the gathering, and that it had monitored their movements in the village of Qaleh Chah, in the Baghran district.

“During a sizable meeting of senior Taliban commanders, coalition forces employed precision-guided munitions on their location after ensuring there were no innocent Afghans in the surrounding area,” the statement said.

“This operation shows that there is no safe haven for the insurgents,” said Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for United States forces in Afghanistan. “It will take some time to determine if both targets were killed.”

The planes bombed a shrine known as Ibrahim Shah Baba, in the Baghran district, the police chief said. Baghran, one of the most remote and mountainous parts of Helmand, is a known Taliban stronghold where United States and NATO ground troops have not ventured recently. The area is so lawless that even local journalists cannot travel to the area to conduct independent reporting.

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If there were any civilian casualties they were the result of the Taliban using them as human shields while they conducted an execution in violation of the Geneva Conventions. That is not particularly surprising since the Taliban rarely take any action that is not in violation of the Conventions. Hopefully several Taliban commanders where killed in the action. Whether it will impede their ritualistic murders is another question.

The BBC report on this event looks like it came directly from the Taliban propaganda department. The headline is about Afghans wounded in air strike and the lead is about 50 civilians being wounded. The fact is that the BBC has no idea whether the wounded were civilians. The Taliban camouflage themselves as civilians in violation of the Geneva Conventions when they are fighting anyway. If any of these people were civilians they were very likely to be human shields that the Taliban leadership gathered around them in hopes that we would not target those leaders.

The story shows a picture of a boy who appears to have shrapnel wounds. He, however, appears to be older than the boy in the Taliban propaganda video who is seen cutting off the head of an alleged spy. This gathering was also to kill some alleged spies. The BBC never mentions the coincidence but trots out the picture in coordination with Taliban propaganda suggesting that the US is targeting civilians or is careless about targeting. If the BBC wonders why there is less respect for it this story would be one example.