In disturbingly familiar scenes since the beginning of America’s War on Terror, 16 civilians were killed and 24 wounded on the main highway from Jalalabad to the Pakistan border on Sunday as US troops opened fire on a road full of cars and people going about their everyday business.
One eyewitness, Tur Gul, commenting on the behaviour of US troops said; "They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway….They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot." Another man described how all five members of his family were killed in the shooting saying, “American bullets murdered my family … it's tyranny and injustice”
The immediate US response to the tragedy has been to blame the innocent loss of life on insurgents claiming that US forces only retaliated to a car bombing by Taleban forces. However, this has been disputed by other credible sources such as the hospital treating the injured stating that all the victims appear to have suffered bullet wounds and not shrapnel consistent with a car bomb explosion.
Further evidence of US complicity in the attack has been revealed by Associated Press (AP) journalists who have complained that US troops immediately seized journalists’ photographs and video footage of the dead after the atrocity and threatened journalists arriving at the scene from airing any of their pictures.
These killings come on the background of increasing difficulties for US and NATO troops 5 ½ years after the occupation of Afghanistan. Initial resistance to US forces by the Taleban in southern Afghanistan has evolved into a mass, large scale resistance movement led by indigenous Pashtun tribes and villages as local people have vented their fury and anger at coalition troops and their ‘operation enduring freedom’. This last year has seen fierce fighting in many districts such as Helmand, rising coalition fatalities, and a resurgent Taleban have taken over a number of villages from NATO forces. As a result, coalition troops have been unable to counter this resistance and the UK government has had to send reinforcements as no other European countries have been willing to send their armed personnel into such a situation.
Within the last few days, the US has been forced to concede that the puppet Hamid Karzai government which it originally hand picked does not have any real authority outside of Kabul. Hence, the visit of Dick Cheney on the 27th February and the deployment of the US aircraft carrier John C Stennis in the northern Arabian Sea indicate the dangers to America’s continued presence in Afghanistan.
The US administration has been talking of an impending ‘spring offensive’ by Taleban and Afghani resistance forces against coalition troops. Last month, George W Bush said, “The snow is going to melt in the Hindu Kush Mountains, and when it does we can expect fierce fighting to continue. The Taliban and al Qaeda are preparing to launch new attacks…This spring there is going to be a new offensive in Afghanistan, and it's going to be a NATO offensive”
If the indiscriminate firing and killing of civilians is the NATO reply to a spring offensive then this reveals the desperate position US and UK forces now find themselves in. Overstretched in the quagmire of Iraq, abandoned and isolated by the European Union into supporting their occupation of Afghanistan, facing increasing casualties and fatalities with a client regime that has no grass roots support the first stop in America’s war on terror is beginning to unravel at an alarming pace. Deep down the US administration knows that its strategy of occupying Muslim countries and imposing western values through the presence of foreign troops was doomed to failure. The tragic loss of life is further evidence that this is now the beginning of the end of this futile policy.