NP - Few Civilian Deaths

[David Morris]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28484-2001Dec11.html

The campaign in Kandahar was fought mainly from the air, with U.S. warplanes 
conducting more than two months of strikes against the city and its 
environs. Despite repeated reports of civilian casualties, a visit to Omar's 
house and a trip around the city today indicated that, for the most part, 
the bombs hit their targets and there were relatively few civilian injuries.

"We did not have many injured here," said Faizal Rabi, a doctor at the Mir 
Weis Hospital, Kandahar's biggest. "We heard there were some civilians 
killed. But I don't really know how many."

Five patients were in Rabi's ward today, he said. None had been injured in 
the bombing.

Dozens of injured civilians were taken to hospitals in Quetta and other 
cities in Pakistan, whose border lies 80 miles to the southeast. And in one 
well-reported incident, American planes are believed to have hit the village 
of Daman, outside Kandahar, killing 21 members of one family and five from 
another. Civilian deaths also occurred when U.S. warplanes struck the Kila 
Jedid ammunition dump and blasted Taliban positions near the airport.

But the long list of civilian fatalities claimed by Taliban officials was 
nowhere to be seen today in Kandahar.




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