First the US Air Force turned a wedding into a massacre, then Afghan Vice-President Haji Abdul-Qadir was murdered. What else can go wrong, asks Iffat Malik from Islamabad Tragedy struck Afghanistan again last week as 48 people, mostly women and children, were killed while attending wedding celebrations. What should have been a joyful occasion turned into a nightmare as US bomber aircraft strafed the village of Kakarak in the Oruzgan province, some 105 miles north of Kandahar. The attack appears to have been another massive blunder by the US. According to eyewitness accounts, guests at the wedding fired into the air in celebration. An American patrol flying overhead mistook the shots for enemy fire and B-52 bombers and AC-130 gun-ships were instructed to attack the area. Estimates of the death toll vary, with some sources putting it as high as 120. It appears certain that at least 40 people were killed and dozens more injured. Numerous local residents reported that among the dead were 25 members of the same family. Not surprisingly, the attack has caused great resentment in Afghanistan. One survivor said: "There are no Taliban or Al-Qa'eda or Arabs here. These people were all civilians, women and children." Another man whose 11-year old son was killed complained that "The Americans have destroyed us. We have neither Al- Qa'eda people nor Taliban but they bombed us. What did we do wrong?" Afghan anger has been fueled by the US response to the blunder. Rather than apologise, the Pentagon initially denied blame for the disaster, claiming that, according to reports, just four children were injured. It also said that all seven of the bombs released by the B-52 were accounted for. As late as Wednesday -- two days after the assault -- Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was saying: "I read in the paper there was a wedding. I just don't know the facts." He also hinted that the whole thing was an anti- US propaganda exercise and claimed that Al- Qa'eda training manuals have been found which instruct users on how to discredit the US in such situations. As it emerged that a major disaster had occurred, the Pentagon's strategy shifted to denying responsibility for the event. Colonel Roger King, at the US air base at Bagram, insisted that American planes came under sustained enemy fire. The Americans also suggested that the Afghan civilians were killed by spent anti-aircraft rounds falling back to the ground. The strength of Afghan feeling about the indifferent US response to the miscalculation that led to the tragedy can be gauged from the fact that -- for the first time since assuming power -- the Karzai administration issued its US backers with a strong warning. President Karzai summoned senior US military personnel to his office and demanded that coalition forces "take all necessary measures to ensure that military casualties to capture terrorist groups do not harm innocent Afghan civilians". The wedding incident is part of a growing pattern whereby a US blunder on the field is followed by attempts to deny responsibility and a marked reluctance to apologise. 'Mishaps' have taken a heavy civilian toll since the US began bombing Afghanistan. In A Dossier on Civilian Victims of the United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting, Marc W Herold, professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire, estimates that 3,767 civilians were killed in the first eight and a half weeks of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Moreover, since the collapse of the Taliban loosened restrictions on the movement of the international media in the country, there have been a number of well-publicised US 'errors' that resulted in scores of civilian deaths. In December, US planes attacked a convoy of tribal leaders travelling to Kabul to attend the inauguration of the interim administration. The Pentagon initially claimed that its forces attacked the convoy because it contained Al- Qa'eda members and only after coming under fire. It later transpired that the US was given false information by a local warlord who had a score to settle with those in the convoy. Sixty people were killed and more than 40 injured. Faulty intelligence was again to blame in January when US Special Forces stormed the village of Hazar Qadam, also in the Oruzgan province, after reports that Al-Qa'eda fighters were hiding there. Sixteen people were killed in the attack and 27 arrested. They were later released and the Pentagon admitted that neither they nor any of the casualties had belonged to the Taliban or Al-Qa'eda. In April, four Canadian soldiers were killed when a US pilot, with the call-sign "Psycho", dropped a 500lb bomb on them. The soldiers had been on a training exercise and had notified the Americans. As with Afghan casualties, the Pentagon's attitude bordered on indifference. President Bush took more than a day to apologise and the American press virtually ignored the incident. The subsequent investigation into the incident concluded that the pilot had ignored basic safety procedures. In May, another wedding party, this time in the village of Balkiel, 30 miles north of Khost, came under US attack after celebratory gunfire. Eleven people were killed. The US later insisted that its planes had come under fire. Commentators insist that although American apologies after such errors would not bring the dead back to life, they would at least make it easier for the victims' families to cope. By taking the opposite approach -- denial and indifference -- Washington is embittering the local population and, in the long term, making Hamid Karzai's job of restoring peace and stability even harder by radicalising the population against his main backers. Meanwhile, across the border in Pakistan's tribal belt, the search for 32 Al-Qa'eda fugitives continues. Ten Pakistani soldiers were killed in a gun battle with the fighters, who then escaped. More than 600 Pakistani soldiers have subsequently been brought into the region to find them. Seven alleged Al-Qa'eda members were arrested last week in the search operation. The men were sheltering in a religious seminary in the town of Gul Kach, some 25 miles from the Afghan border. All the men are Pakistanis -- three tribesmen, the rest Punjabis. They claim to be members of a missionary group called Tableeghi Jamaat, and say they have nothing to do with Al-Qa'eda or the Taliban. The seven suspects are being questioned by army interrogators. In the meantime, the hunt for the Al-Qa'eda fighters involved in last week's shoot-out goes on.
