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NATO Strike Kills Afghan Family

VOA News February 21, 2011

Afghan officials say a NATO air strike, targeting suspected militants, has killed a civilian couple and their four children in Nangarhar province.

Authorities say Sunday's raid in Khogyani district was aimed at three insurgents planting mines on a road.

A spokesman for the provincial governor says a missile from the attack mistakenly hit a house, killing the family.

NATO says it is "investigating this tragic incident."

The attack came after Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused NATO troops of killing about 50 civilians during operations against insurgents in neighboring Kunar province. NATO said it has sent a team to investigate.

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials say a suspected U.S. drone attack has killed seven people in a tribal region close to the Afghan border.

Pakistani intelligence officials said several foreign nationals were killed in the attack early Monday. They reported at least three missiles hit a house in the Azam Warsak area of South Waziristan.

U.S. officials rarely comment on missile strikes in Pakistani territory, which are deeply unpopular throughout Pakistan and are opposed by the government in Islamabad.

The missile strike in South Waziristan is the first since the arrest last month of a U.S. government employee who shot and killed two Pakistanis in the eastern city of Lahore. American officials say Raymond Davis was acting in self-defense during a robbery attempt, and that he has diplomatic immunity from arrest.

Analysts say they have suspected that the U.S. halted drone attacks while it was pressing authorities in Islamabad to release Davis.

Meanwhile, a U.S. news report said drone attacks in Pakistan last year conducted by the CIA are believed to have killed at least 581 militants, but only only two of those men appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists.

Despite a major escalation in the number of unmanned strikes,The Washington Post reports that the casualty rate among high-ranking militants has "slipped or barely increased."

The newspaper says results of the missile strikes have raised questions about "the purpose and parameters" of last year's 118 drone attacks, each of which cost more than $1 million.

The Washington Post reports Pakistan "secretly authorized" the drone attacks for years, but authorities in Islamabad have now asked the Obama administration to put "new restraints" into place on the use of deadly force by unmanned aircraft. One Pakistani official reportedly said that to an increasing extent, U.S. rockets are killing "mere foot soldiers" among the insurgents.

The newspaper reports Pakistan has implored the U.S. "to find better targets" and "be a little less gung-ho (zealous)."

Peter Bergen, an expert on terrorism at the New America Foundation, is quoted as saying that 94 percent of those killed by drone attacks have been lower-level militants. He contends such "targeted killings" should be aimed at terrorist leaders, and there should be no "blanket dispensation" for drone attacks in less specific circumstances.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.