AN AMERICAN military operation that killed up to 90 civilians was based on false information provided by a rival tribe and did not kill a single Taleban fighter, the Afghan president's spokesman said yesterday, contradicting US claims to have killed up to 35 militants.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the US military false intelligence that led to the bombardment of the village of Azizabad, the Afghan interior ministry announced.
"There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forc
es," Humayun Hamidzada, spokesman for president Hamid Karzai, said.
An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a UN report.
The operation, conducted by US Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, targeted Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members – the reason the US military recovered weapons after the battle, Mr Hamidzada said.
The US has said its forces were fired on first during a raid that targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq, but villagers of Azizabad say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of US forces.
The coalition iself has declined to comment on this.
"How the information was gathered, how it was misfed, and their personal animosity led to trying to use the international forces for their own political disputes, which led to a disastrous event and caused a strain on the relationship of the Afghan government and international forces," Mr Hamidzada said.
He added: "Not a single Taleb was killed."
The US at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed.
