US and Afghan troops have quit the village where Taleban fighters fought their way into a US base and killed nine US soldiers wounding many more last Sunday.
A statement attempted to cover the rout of the US-led troops by saying that the outpost had been temporary and that ‘regular patrols’ were to be carried out in the area.
Two hundred Taleban stormed the combat outpost in the village of Wanat on Sunday. US troops quit the area on the Monday taking all of their heavy weaponry with them.
The fact that the Taleban has stormed their fortress, defying the desperate use of aircraft and helicopter gunships to try and halt them, means that the whole US garrison risked annihilation if it remained in the area.
The Afghan government position on the defeat of the US forces was put by Omar Sami Taza, a spokesman for the governor of Nuristan.
He said that US troops had withdrawn from the area, ‘leaving the district in the hands of only 20 policemen.
‘American troops have taken all of the heavy weapons out of the district and this is why we have lost that district to the Taleban. Our police could not hold it with just one AK-47.’
The main weapon of the US-UK forces is a mass bombing of targets, mainly civilian, where it is alleged that the Taleban is operating. This is a tactic that sees Afghan women and children slaughtered in droves with the Taleban the real winner strategically, while the US seeks to cover its bloody tracks by claiming that the casualties were minimal and that they were all Taleban fighters.
An Afghan parliamentary investigation has found that a US air strike, also last Sunday in the eastern province of Nangarhar, killed 47 civilians.
Regional officials said the casualties were attending a wedding party and that the bride had been killed, along with a very large number of women and children.
The US military has said it has launched an investigation into the incident. It earlier claimed that only Taleban fighters had been killed and that the number of corpses was less that a dozen.
In recent days, international humanitarian organisations have voiced concern about the high number of civilian casualties being caused by US and UK military forces.
With all their technological advances, how can they not differentiate between a wedding party with women and children and the Taleban and al-Qaeda? asked Burhanullah Shinwari, an Afghan senator sent to investigate the deaths of the 47 civilians.
The inquiry into Sunday’s incident in Nangarhar, has raised tensions between the Afghan puppet government and the foreign troops who put it into power and keep it there by force of arms.
In the past, President Hamid Karzai has said that no civilian casualties are acceptable.
Some local politicians have demanded that charges be brought against those responsible for Sunday’s air strike.
‘The Americans say they can’t miss a target of four inches,’ said Burhanullah Shinwari, the head of the investigating team.
‘With all their technological advances, how can they not differentiate between a wedding party, women, children and the Taleban and al-Qaeda?’
Isaf spokesmen can only say that the number of civilians killed in Isaf operations were in the ‘low double figures’.
However, all local organisations say the true number is far higher, into the thousands.
The only answer of the US-UK forces to the renowned combativity of the Afghan people, historically for their bravery in the defence of their country, is to slaughter more and more civilians, thereby qualitatively increasing the numbers of Afghans who take up arms against them after every massacre.
British workers must give their full support to the Afghan people and fight for all of the imperialist armies to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. They must stand for the victory of the Afghan people.
