Afghan Campaign Guaranteed to Keep Killing Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Afghan Campaign Guaranteed to Keep Killing US will kill, maim at least 1800-3600 additional civilians Well, isn't this cheerful news. Prospects for mine-clearing in Afghanistan are much worse as a result of the air campaign in civilian centers. As well as hitting the Red Cross twice and Al Jazeera's broadcast facilities in the last few days when they could pretend there were targets to hit, US forces -- always preferring to kill scores of locals before letting one of The Boys in Uniform get a splinter -- used massive amounts of cluster bomblets. 7-15% of the bomblets don't detonate on impact but remain extremely dangerous on the ground. They also look enough like food packets that the US had to drop pamphlets explaining which kind of "food" killed you and anyone within a hundred feet of you right away. Now, it turns out that the huge number of unexploded cluster bomblets are drastically slowing de-mining in Afghanistan and forcing the de-mining crews to go back over areas previously cleared. 150-300 people are killed each month by mines, and roughly an equal number are injured. So, the US investment in The Good Fight will likely lead to the deaths of as many as were killed at WTC just by delaying the de-mining. That's on top of the direct kills, of course. Consider it a human dividend on the US investment. Associated Press - May 30, 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghanistan-Delayed-De-mining.html De-Mining Delayed in Afghanistan by the Associated Press KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- The use of cluster bombs during the U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan has pushed back efforts to clear this mine-laden city by at least a year and raised doubts about a plan to rid the region of unexploded ordnance by decade's end, U.N. officials said Thursday. Efforts to clear the region of bomblets, known as BLUs, have become the top priority for U.N.-backed de-mining teams in five southern provinces, where they are scattered in 46 areas. ``They are just waiting to explode,'' said A.G. Asalati of the U.N. Regional Mine Action Center. ``Many parts of Kandahar are contaminated ... and some BLUs are near populated areas.'' International organizations such as British-based Landmine Action have estimated the United States dropped nearly 125,000 bomblets on Afghanistan, based on a Pentagon statement that about 600 cluster bombs were used by early December. Each cluster bomb contains 202 bomblets, 7 percent to 15 percent of which are thought not to have exploded. Afghanistan's two decades of warfare left an estimated 5 million to 10 million mines littering the country, the vast majority of them left by the Soviets during their 10-year occupation of the country. Asalati said the U.N. agency had hoped to clear Kandahar of the mines by the end of 2001, but the cluster bombs had delayed that timetable by at least a year. Since February, de-miners have managed to clear bomblets from all but six areas encompassing about 40 square miles. The United States has provided them with maps of many strike areas and helped train the de-miners in neutralizing cluster bombs and bomblets. The International Committee for the Red Cross estimates about 3,000 Afghans are maimed each year by land mines. According to U.N. estimates, 100,000 people have been injured or maimed over the past 23 years. As many as 150 to 300 people were killed each month in 2001 by mines or unexploded ordnance, according to U.N. figures. Back in 1993, Afghanistan had an average of 20 to 24 casualties per day -- up to 8,500 deaths a year, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Children are the most common victims. Tied to a bed at the Red Cross-run Mir Wais Hospital in Kandahar, 13-year-old Mohammed Raffia screamed in pain as doctors adjusted the bandages that covered his head. In a nearby bed, his friend Niaz Mohammed, 16, lay with his right hand missing. The two teen-agers were injured over the weekend as they watched over their grazing herd of cows and sheep in the town of Bagh-a-Pul, near a former Taliban tank regiment. ``Niaz saw something and picked it up. It exploded,'' said his father. Niaz is the second of four sons to be injured in four months, he said. Local authorities say the area, near a former Taliban weapons depot, is one of the few places near drought-plagued Kandahar that still has some vegetation. However, the area is also littered with mine fields and unexploded ordnance left when U.S. and coalition forces methodically bombed the depot. Bending over a yellow bomblet about the size of two soft drink cans, mine clearer Nazar Mohammad, 55, sweated profusely as he cleared the area around it before fitting a small amount of plastic explosive to destroy the bomblet. ``I hate these things,'' said Mohammad, a mine clearer for 18 years. ``They are more dangerous than mines; they will explode on touch.'' When it explodes, a bomblet breaks into tiny steel fragments honeycombed into the casing -- an explosion so powerful that it will fuse limestone and can kill anyone within 100 feet. Mohammad was even more frustrated because he has already cleared the area twice -- first of Russian mines, then of mines laid by rebels. Fresh contamination of cleared areas, officials say, is the biggest problem faced by de-mining teams. ``We are very frustrated because we have to go back to places we have already cleaned before and do it again,'' said Haji Ghulam Nabi, the head of Mohammad's 10-man team. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmid-05.31.02-18:16:01-31064