N: UN to release 'bomb blunder' report
Geschrieben von XI am 30. Juli 2002 08:50:50:
UN to release 'bomb blunder' report
The United Nations will on Tuesday make public its final report on the US airstrike which killed nearly 50 people at a wedding party at the start of July.
According to The Times newspaper, the UN report says there was no corroboration of the US claim that the aircraft that launched the attack had first been targeted from the ground.
The UN probe is said to have found that US troops cleaned the area - removing shrapnel, bullets and traces of blood.
The report will be released by Lakhdar Brahimi, who is UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special representative in Afghanistan.
Civilian protection
The United Nations has declined to comment on the details published in advance of the report's official release.
However, a statement from the UN office in Afghanistan said that the findings showed the need to make protection of civilian lives a top priority in the fight against terrorism in the country.
The US military has denied covering any evidence relating to the attack.
The Afghan Government says that 48 civilians died and more than 100 others were injured when US planes bombed targets in central Uruzgan Province on 1 July.
The US says that its AC-130 gunship came under direct attack.
At Afghan weddings it is traditional to fire weapons in the air, and it has been suggested that the US might have mistaken this for hostile fire.
Hands tied
The American side said it needed several weeks to collect evidence and make a full report.
But locals say US officials arrived just hours after the raid, taking photographs and filming the scene and the bodies.
The UN investigation is also reported to have found that women at the bomb site had their hands tied.
A spokesman for Afghanistan's foreign ministry says it is premature to judge whether or not there has been a cover-up, as investigations are still ongoing, but warned there should be no cover-up from any side.
He said the Afghan Government is continuing to look into the matter, and says it is taking the allegations that women's hands were forcibly tied very seriously.