After the bombing raid, U.S. Special Forces moved in to arrest the survivors. "I was shouting 'Dost! Dost!'--'We are friends!'--but they [U.S. soldiers] were not listening," stated Abdul Rauf, 60, the police chief in this small mountain town. "American soldiers came and started to beat me. I was down on my knees, bent over, and they kicked me in the chest. I heard my ribs crack. Then I was lying on my side and they kicked me in the back, in the kidneys, and I fainted."

The prisoners, with hands and feet bound, were flown to the U.S. military base in Kandahar. All 27 were roped together and forced to lie face down on the hangar floor with their hands tied behind their backs and their feet chained. For the rest of the night they were subjected to violent blows and kicking. "They were walking on our backs like we were stones," said Rauf.

The next day, Aktar Muhammad, 17, stated he was picked up and thrown to the ground three times by soldiers, until on the third time he fainted from a blow to the head. After being held in a wooden cage, he was placed in solitary confinement in a metal shipping container for eight days where he underwent an "aggressive" interrogation, reported the New York Times.

After 16 days of beatings, torture, and interrogation, U.S. authorities, saying they were "sorry" and had "committed a mistake bombing this place," finally released the 27 Afghans captured in this attack.

"Why did they bomb us? Why did they do this?" stated Rauf. "I can never forgive them." Pentagon officials had at first summarily dismissed statements by the villagers that U.S. forces had attacked and killed people without cause, sticking with their story that they had launched a raid against Taliban or al Qaeda supporters. Once forced to investigate, their claims quickly unraveled.

Since October 7 Washington has dropped some 18,000 bombs, missiles, and other ordnance on Afghanistan, killing thousands of civilians. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee February 7, Gen. Tom Franks, commander of the U.S. military's Central Command, downplayed these figures, acknowledging that Pentagon officials don't even bother to keep track of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The general insisted that the high casualty reports come from Taliban sympathizers who "do not share the same value of human life that we share in this country."

The price that Washington places on human life in Afghanistan--even when faced with international exposure in killing villagers in Hazar Qadam--was made known when the CIA quietly made payments to the families of the dead. The compensation? $1,000.  
 
 
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