Human error bred horror in Afghan villages

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

Misguided bombs killed innocents

By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 2/20/2002

HAHWALI KOT, Afghanistan - On a barren hilltop where a US special forces
unit had unfurled an American flag and the future leader of Afghanistan was
directing his troops, an American soldier called for a B-52 strike on a
Taliban target. He gave the exact coordinates of his position and the
position of the target.


Somehow, those coordinates were reversed by the pilot or the ground spotter,
according to a US fighter pilot familiar with the episode, and the B-52
dropped a 2,000-pound satellite-guided bomb on the US and Afghan soldiers.

The friendly-fire accident on Dec. 5 - never previously reported in detail -
killed three US special forces, including a Green Beret from Cheshire,
Mass., and five anti-Taliban Afghan fighters. It also dealt the Pentagon a
deadly lesson still reverberating today.

Immediately after that accident, US Central Command in Tampa forbade
American special forces from revealing their exact position to US warplanes
when calling in airstrikes, said the fighter pilot, who spoke on condition
of anonymity. Those coordinates had previously been given to pilots when it
was not possible to spot the special forces units from the air, such as when
clouds obscured the view.

But the pitched battle in and around Shahwali Kot, about 18 miles north of
Kandahar, posed other difficult lessons for the US military as well, and
will be studied by the Pentagon as it relates to the use of air power in
close combat situations, according to two US defense officials, who asked
not to be identified.

The study is necessary, the officials said, because nearly anything that
could go wrong that night did.

During the 18- to 20-hour battle in the middle of the cluster of villages of
Shahwali Kot, Argan Dab, and Sirband, US bombs also killed 35 civilians,
also not previously disclosed, according to local Afghan commanders.
Throughout Afghanistan, a Globe review has found that US bombardment almost
certainly killed more than 1,000 innocents, although the deaths in these
villages are unusual because of the apparent decision by US troops to bomb
known civilian areas that were caught in the crossfire of battle.

Here, the number of civilian deaths was far greater than the killing of
Taliban troops, the Afghan commanders said. They said the fighting killed
only a handful of Taliban fighters, while an estimated 2,000 Taliban escaped
toward Kandahar.

The fighting would last only two more days as US airstrikes and Afghan
troops directed by three commanders - one was Hamid Karzai, now the
country's interim leader, coming from Shahwali Kot - led to the rout of the
Taliban in Kandahar on Dec. 7. But the commanders acknowledge that the fight
here was a disaster.

''This was a fight between the Taliban and us, and we were mixed together,''
said Sadder Mohammed, a Karzai commander and now head of the district office
in Shahwali Kot. ''The Americans couldn't differentiate between us or the
civilians. ... It was a bad situation.''

One of the biggest problems was the lack of communication, Mohammed said.
While US forces stayed next to Karzai, who was slightly cut on his face by
shrapnel from the bomb that killed the Americans, they couldn't stay in
touch with many of the Afghan commanders, he said. The commanders needed
satellite phones to keep in touch with Karzai, he said.

For six weeks, the 5th US Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.,
had joined with Karzai and his troops. They were in the heart of the remote
Uruzgan Province and planned for three weeks to take the capital of Tarin
Kot, 70 miles north of Kandahar. Using a satellite phone, Karzai negotiated
a surrender with local leaders and took over the city.

But soon after, the Taliban mounted a challenge to the city. The US special
forces set up an observation spot outside the town.

Sergeant 1st Class Daniel Petithory, 32, the Cheshire resident, directed the
air attack from the ground, according to US Captain Jason Amerine, the
unit's commander.

''It's an art. And the guy I had at it was the best I had ever seen,''
Amerine told the Washington Post. ''They completely mauled that convoy.''
The airstrikes were later credited with possibly saving Karzai's life.

On Nov. 30, the Americans and anti-Taliban troops arrived in Shahwali Kot.
The US troops, numbering between 35 and 40, set up in the tiny Basick Health
Center, most of them sleeping on the floor of the vaccination room. Using
telephone connections from a satellite dish positioned on the hill, the US
troops hooked up their computers to the Internet, said Omar Shah, a local
resident who helped the Americans.

In the hallway, one US special forces member put a bumper sticker on the
wall, a reminder of why they had come: I [heart shape] NY.

Next door in a school, Karzai and a few American troops set up operations.
An aide to Karzai acted as the translator for the Americans, who also spent
many hours on the hill outside.

From the high point came the fateful call for an airstrike. One bomb hit the
apex of the hill, leaving a crater only 30 yards from the health center; the
Pentagon originally said it was 100 yards away. Another bomb hit the slope
of the hill, 15 yards away, destroying four vehicles.

The carnage was grotesque, say witnesses. One body had severed legs. Other
body parts were scattered. The other two American dead were Staff Sergeant
Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of Frazier Park, Calif., and Master Sergeant
Jefferson Donald Davis, 39, of Watauga, Tenn.

Seventeen US troops and more than 20 Afghan soldiers suffered wounds.
Karzai, who had stepped outside just as the bombs hit, was cut on his ear
and cheek from flying shrapnel, and then pushed inside.

''A helicopter landed and took all the Americans,'' said Habibullah, an
Afghan soldier who uses one name. ''There was a lot of noise, a lot of
crying and weeping.''

Hours later at the Pentagon, Rear Admiral John D. Stufflebeem, deputy
director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the
difficulties of the battle.

''Calling in airstrikes nearly simultaneously on your own position, on enemy
forces that you're engaged in close proximity to, is a hazardous business
and takes very fine control and cooordination and precision,'' he said.

He said nothing about wrong coordinates. Following the ban on giving those
coordinates, US fighter pilots in the war theater were briefed on the
accident.

''One of the lessons we took away from that incident is never, never give
out the coordinates of your position,'' said the fighter pilot, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity. ''It's OK to give your position as a cardinal
direction and distance from a target, but not your actual position
coordinates.''

A Central Command spokesman, Sergeant Major Richard Czizik, declined to
comment on the issue. ''That deals with tactics, technical procedures, and
operational matters. It's not something we would discuss,'' he said.

Omar Shah, the local resident who helped the Americans, said the Americans
told him that four US troops died in the bombing. Czizik said three Defense
Department soldiers were killed. Bill Harlow, spokesman for the Central
Intelligence Agency, said no CIA officer was killed in the Dec. 5 accident.

Elsewhere that night and the following day, other scenes of horror unfolded.
In a camp of cuchis, or Afghan nomads, about a mile north of the Americans,
12 people from two families were killed by US bombs, said Mohammed, the
Afghan commander.

Only one person survived that blast. The ground is still blackened from the
attack, and shreds of their colorful clothing are spread over a 50-yard
radius. Across the street, a mound contains body parts of the 12 dead.

In Shahwali, Mohammed said, the dead included three visitors from Tarin Kot
and four residents. In neighboring Sirband, where shops along the main road
were destroyed, three died. And in Argan Dab, another 13 were killed.

Malika, who uses one name, said a US missile hit her house in Argan Dab and
killed five relatives and wounded six others. At Mirwais Hospital in
Kandahar, she was helping take care of her daughter, Maimona, 17, who had
severe fractures in both legs; and her son, Roholha, 6, whose genitals were
severed by shrapnel.

After the missile hit her house, she couldn't persuade a driver to take them
to the hospital.

''He said, `I will not go because of the planes in the sky. We will be blown
away by a blast.' The children were bleeding all night. I talked to God that
night, and I said, `Kill me, not my son.'''

She continued, ''We were not Taliban. We don't know the Taliban. We were
just sitting in our house, listening to the BBC Pashto service at 8:30 p.m.
I just want to know if you can help my son. He's without a penis. My husband
has two wives, but this is his only son.''

Malika's anguish from Dec. 5 is shared halfway around the world by another
mother.

In Cheshire, Petithory's mother, Barbara, said in a telephone interview
yesterday that unit commander Amerine wrote a letter to her and her husband,
Louis, stating that their son did not call in the airstrikes that day.

''My husband carries that letter with him all the day,'' she said. ''Knowing
he wasn't responsible for the airstrikes has put my mind at ease. But I'm
not doing too well. I have moments of anxiety attacks, just knowing I will
never see him again. It's a nightmare, it really is.''

And at the bomb site, where a black flag flies atop a tall pole, there is
remembrance.

On Christmas Day, three US vehicles carrying American troops revisited the
place of death. Omar Shah said he watched them trudge up the hill. There, he
said, the US soldiers held a short ceremony.

They saluted the dead. Then they sang Christmas carols.

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly at globe.com

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 2/20/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

Nello

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