Row after US claim Afghans burn own children

AN investigation into claims international troops killed scores of civilians in northeast Afghanistan escalated into a feud between President Hamid Karzai and senior US military officials who cited a report that Afghan parents have been known to discipline children by burning their hands and feet.

Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar described comments made by Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, director of communications for the US-led coalition, also known as International Security Assistance Force, as being “outrageous, insulting and racist”. He demanded a clarification.

The flap started during a discussion at the presidential palace about claims that NATO forces killed about 60 civilians during a four-day operation in Kunar province — a charge that has been contested by the international coalition.

Media reports and television footage broadcast after the claims showed severely injured children and others with burns on their faces, hands and feet — yet it was unclear if they were injured in military operations.

The Washington Post, quoting unidentified individuals who attended the palace meeting, reported that General David Petraeus, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, had suggested Afghans might have intentionally burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties.

The coalition vehemently denied the report.

“General Petraeus never said that children’s hands and feet were purposely burned by their families in order to create a CIVCAS (civilian casualty) event,” Smith said. “Rather, he said the injuries to the children appeared inconsistent with the types of munitions used and that the burns to their hands and feet may have been the result of discipline sometimes handed out to Afghan children.”

Omar said that Karzai was demanding an explanation.

“The president was extremely annoyed by the comments made by Adm. Smith, we find these comments outrageous, insulting and racist,” Omar told The Associated Press.

“Afghans love their children and to suggest that Afghans boil the hands and feet of their children suggests a lack of information or ... someone’s feeling for Afghans. We want NATO and the ISAF leadership to take serious note of these comments,” he said.

Although relatively unheard of, there have been some such incidents reported in the past. A 2009 human rights report issued by the US State Department said “in extreme examples of child abuse, observers reported several instances of deliberately burned children in Paktia (province); the children sustained burns after their parents submerged them in boiling water.”

A government delegation met with tribal elders from the remote Ghazi Abad district to investigate the claims of civilian casualties.

Nawrdin Safi, a provincial council member from Kunar, said tribal elders repeated their allegation that “more than 60 people have been killed in the four days of the operation and around 50 of that number are civilians, including women and children”.

He said the delegation was discussing a trip to Ghazi Abad.

“The real investigation will be at the site,” Safi said.