KABUL — Video of the aftermath of a disputed incident involving American forces and the Taliban shows bloodied bodies of children laid out with other corpses, confirming international Red Cross findings at the two remote villages in western Afghanistan.
The U.S. military does not contest that civilians died but called “extremely overexaggerated” a report by an Afghan official that as many as 147 were killed.
Afghans blame aerial bombing Monday and Tuesday for the deaths and destruction. U.S. officials have suggested that Taliban fighters caused at least some of the deaths and said investigators on a joint U.S.-Afghan team were analyzing data collected in the villages of Ganjabad and Gerani in Farah province.
In a video obtained Friday by Associated Press Television News, villagers are seen wrapping the mangled bodies of some of the victims in blankets and cloths and lining them up on the dusty ground.
It was not possible to verify independently the authenticity of the video. The International Committee of the Red Cross also has said that women and children were among dozens of dead people its teams saw in the two villages.
On Thursday, a local official said he collected from residents the names of 147 people killed in the fighting. If true, it would be the deadliest case of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime.
Villagers “were pointing to graves and saying, ‘This is my son, this is my daughter,’ ” said Abdul Basir Khan, a member of Farah’s provincial council. He said he gave his tally to the investigators.
The U.S. military described that toll as over the top.
“The investigators and the folks on the ground think that those numbers are extremely overexaggerated,” U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said. “We are definitely nowhere near those estimates.”
While past reports of civilian deaths at the hands of international forces drew immediate outcries from President Hamid Karzai’s government, this time the response has been muted. The most vehement reaction has come from opposition lawmakers, who demanded an agreement that would regulate the operations of foreign troops.
