Afghans Protest After the US Kills Father of Five
A man touches the forehead of a loved one killed
in a US-NATO pre-dawn attack on Mehtar Lam,
in Laghman province. Photo: AP/Rahmat Gul
[Note: This photo is from an earlier US atrocity.] The official statement reads largely the same as the others do. “An individual with a weapon” is spotted during the raid and after being determined a threat “was shot and killed.” Other than a protest in Jalalabad nothing was unusual. Most of the time the story would end there. We would never hear who the “individual” was, we certainly would never hear that troops ransacked the home during the raid. In ordinary cases, this would be just another Afghan with a gun, killed by NATO troops and chalked up as a combat death.
But this time we do know the victim. Amanullah, a 30 year old auto mechanic and father of five, who made a panicked phone call to his distant relative, Afghan MP Safiya Sidiqi, that the family compound was being raided by what he assumed was a “gang of thieves.” He had no reason to think anything different [They were no different. They are a gang of thieves and murderers.]. After all, who figures that the US would launch a night raid against the family home of a member of parliament? Shot six times by the raiding US troops, including in the face and heart, Amanullah was slain on the spot. In the raid, the US troops handcuffed everyone in the compound and took fingerprints, they claimed they were looking for a “Taliban facilitator.” They never did find him.