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Quarta-feira, julho 30o, 2008
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Por Madeira de David | WASHINGTON - airstrikes diários por ESTADOS UNIDOS. e os lutador-bombardeiros aliados em Afeganistão dobraram quase desde o último verão, de acordo com ESTADOS UNIDOS. Os dados da força aérea, uma tendência que refletisse aumentaram ataques insurgent mas também interesses dos aumentos sobre víctimas civis.

O reliance crescente em airstrikes por ESTADOS UNIDOS. os comandantes em Afeganistão parecem marcar uma volta no curso da guerra.

Respondendo aos pedidos dos comandantes à terra, o excesso que aliado do avião a semana passada tem pummeled os alvos inimigos da terra um uma média de 68 vezes um dia através de Afeganistão, deixando cair 500 - e bombas guiadas 2.000 libras e forças inimigas strafing com fogo do canhão, de acordo com relatórios diários da batida da força aérea.

Um ano há, a força aérea era gravação aproximadamente 35 airstrikes por o dia em Afeganistão.

Embora a força aérea faça exame de o que diz seja medidas exhaustive evitar mortes acidentais, as víctimas civis dos airstrikes têm spiked duas vezes este ano, de nenhuns em janeiro a 23 em março a 60 assim distante este mês, de acordo com dados novos, unpublished do Marc Garlasco do investigador do relógio de direitas humanas, um chefe de escolha de objectivos anterior para a equipe de funcionários comum do Pentagon.

os insurgents Taliban-conduzidos estão atacando em números significativos e permanecer para lutar melhor que acoplar em tradicional bat-e-funcionam táticas do guerrilla, de acordo com ESTADOS UNIDOS. comandantes.

Em diversos incidents recentes, ESTADOS UNIDOS. e as tropas aliadas prevaleceram em batalhas lançadas somente depois que os lutador-bombardeiros mostrados até a explosão os insurgents.

O papel crescente do poder de ar sugere que a guerra requererá mais do que as tropas adicionais recomendadas perto Presidente Bush e ambos os candidatos presidenciais. Pôde reque avião mais equipado e mais 2não pilotado de uma força aérea e de uma marinha já overstretched.

E um uso mais grande do poder de ar resultaria provavelmente em umas víctimas mais civis, em um conflito em que a lealdade local ganhando é considerada a chave ao sucesso.

Última queda, presidente Afghan Hamid Karzai, respondendo ao pedágio civil levantando-se da morte dos airstrikes, exijidos publicamente que os Estados Unidos encontram uma alternativa. Mas os airstrikes aumentaram somente.

Os comandantes aliados estão investigando ainda um airstrike julho de 6 que o governo Afghan diga mate 47 civis em sua maneira a um casamento.

“Nós lamentamos profundamente todo o incident onde os civis são prejudicados,” dissemos o capitão real da marinha. Microfone Finney, um spokesman para os ESTADOS UNIDOS - coalition militar conduzido em Afeganistão.

`Inimigo emboldened'

But the Air Force says it is only responding to the intensity of fighting on the ground.

“Let’s face it, the enemy is more emboldened,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Raaberg, deputy commander of air operations in the region. Raaberg is a B-1 bomber pilot who has flown strike missions over Afghanistan as recently as last week.

“The Taliban, when they have an opportunity to take a stand, they are doing that,” he said in a telephone interview from the region.

Coalition aircraft have doubled the number of hours they spend each day on airborne “armed overwatch” of U.S. and allied convoys and other operations, he said. He acknowledged that strike missions also have doubled as ground commanders increasingly request air support.

To meet the demand, allied air crews are flying more sorties each day, and more U.S. aircraft are on station with the recent diversion of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln from Iraq operations to supporting operations in Afghanistan.

“We are shifting assets as needed to make sure we don’t leave [ground forces] uncovered,” Raaberg said.

But the Air Force has to scramble to meet unexpected demand.

A Taliban attack July 13, for example, nearly overran a remote U.S. and Afghan outpost near the Pakistani border. Insurgents held the upper hand in combat until an Air Force B-1 bomber flew in to drop 2,000-pound bombs, an unmanned Predator fired a Hellfire missile and other strike aircraft dropped bombs and strafed the enemy with cannon. The insurgents retreated, leaving nine American soldiers dead.

“The only reason they weren’t completely overrun was air power, and that’s the first time that has happened” in the Afghan war, said John McCreary, who retired in 2006 as a senior intelligence analyst for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

“Coalition ground forces are not winning every battle, but they are winning every battle where they have air support,” said McCreary, who follows Afghanistan closely and still assembles a daily open-source intelligence report.

On July 20, Raaberg was piloting a B-1 bomber over Afghanistan when he was redirected to attack Taliban forces gathering for an assault on a U.S. forward operating base in Kunar province, in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan.

“They started attacking within half an hour of when I got there,” Raaberg recalled. He said U.S. artillery fired at the enemy, followed by airstrikes, followed by more artillery and more airstrikes, “until we ran out of bombs.”

Defeating such Taliban attacks, he said, is “not so much air [power] saving the day, it’s air combined with ground forces combined with our coalition partners. We’re trying to use everything.”

Analysts who have studied casualty patterns in Afghanistan say that the vast majority are caused, deliberately or not, by the Taliban and other insurgents.

According to Human Rights Watch, a nonpartisan international research organization, 929 Afghan civilians were killed in the fighting in 2006. Of those, 699 were killed by the Taliban and 230 by U.S. or coalition forces, including 116 by airstrikes.

In 2007, 1,633 Afghan civilians died in the fighting, with 950 killed by the Taliban and 434 by U.S. and coalition forces, according to data provided by Garlasco. The rest died under unclear or unknown circumstances, he said.

But while the number killed by U.S. or coalition ground forces stayed about the same, those killed by airstrikes more than doubled, to 321.

A key reason for the increase is that the Taliban are “shielding” their fighters among Afghanistan’s civilian population, Garlasco said.

“They actually go into peoples’ homes, force them to stay there during a battle, force them to build defensive trenches for them - these are true Geneva Conventions violations,” Garlasco said.

Raaberg said the Air Force will not attack insurgents shielding themselves among civilians “and the enemy knows that.”

Unplanned strikes

But Garlasco said the Air Force has not taken as much care with its quick-reaction airstrike missions as it has with those planned in detail and reviewed by intelligence analysts and lawyers at the U.S. regional air operations headquarters in Qatar.

“In their planned airstrikes, they have virtually eliminated the danger of civilian casualties,” Garlasco said. “It is in the unplanned airstrikes that you’re seeing almost all of the civilian casualties.”

Such unplanned missions often involve urgent calls to support U.S. and allied troops who unexpectedly engage in battle. Or an unmanned surveillance plane might find a group of people mistakenly identified by targeters as insurgents.

Raaberg said that for unplanned missions - such as the one in which he participated July 20 - the air command dispatches not just strike aircraft but intelligence and command aircraft, all in close coordination with ground commanders and tactical air controllers.

“It’s a painstaking effort,” he said. If insurgents are mixed in with civilians, “we will wait them out if we can” or ask the ground commander to flush them out.

But U.S. and allied troops in trouble take precedence.

“My hat’s off to the ones on the ground,” Raaberg said.

“There’s nothing more uncomfortable than to hear on the radio mortars and grenades going off. You’ve got to go help them.”

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