U.S. air strike victims say Taliban long gone

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By Jason Motlagh

HERAT, Afghanistan | Afghans who lost family members in a U.S. bombardment last week say Taliban militants fled hours before the U.S. attack -- an account that contrasts with Pentagon claims about an incident that has come to encapsulate an uphill battle for Afghan hearts and minds.

Haji Sayed Barakat, who lost two children and his wife of 35 years in the May 4 attack, said Taliban militants were present in the area but had moved on two hours before the U.S. air strikes.

In a voice more confused than angry, the Afghan farmer gestured toward his three remaining daughters, now recovering in the sterile quarters of Herat hospital's new burn ward.

"My girls, do they look like Taliban?" he asked.

Afghan officials say 140 people, including 95 children, died in the operation in the country's western Farah province. The figures, if confirmed, would amount to the largest number of civilians killed in a single incident since U.S. forces helped oust a Taliban government in 2001.

The deaths sent public anger reverberating through the Kabul government at an especially fragile moment in the war, with a summer showdown with the resurgent Taliban looming.

In Farah city, a stone-throwing mob shouted, "Death to America," before they were scattered by police gunfire this week. President Hamid Karzai and Afghan lawmakers have repeatedly called for an end to U.S. air strikes.

"How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?" Mr. Karzai said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." He called civilian casualties the "biggest concern of Afghanistan and a damage to the effort against terrorists."

Two days later, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates replaced Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, with former Green Beret Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to bring "fresh thinking" to the counterinsurgency strategy.

According to U.N. figures, 2,118 civilians were killed in conflict-related violence last year, a jump of nearly 40 percent over 2007. Of that toll, pro-government forces were held responsible for 828 deaths, largely from errant air strikes and special operations raids.