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星期三， 2008年7月30日
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由 大衛木頭 | 華盛頓-每日空襲由美國。 并且聯盟的戰鬥機轟炸機在阿富汗從去年夏天幾乎加倍了，根據美國。 空軍數據，反射的趨向增加了叛亂攻擊，而且對平民受害者的培養關心。

對空襲的增長的信賴由美國。 戰爭其間，司令員在阿富汗看上去標記輪。

反應請求從地面司令員，聯盟的航空器過去星期打了敵對地面目標每68乘一天橫跨阿富汗，下降500 -和2,000磅制導炸彈和掃射敵軍與炮火的平均，根據空軍每日罷工報告。

一年前，空軍是錄音大約每天的35空襲在阿富汗。

雖然空軍採取什麼它認為是詳盡的措施避免意外死亡，平民受害者從空襲今年兩次有尖，從無在1月到23在3月到60到目前為止這個月，根據新，未出版的數據從人權觀察研究員果渣Garlasco，一個前瞄準的院長為五角大樓的聯合職員。

Taliban被帶領的叛亂者在重大數字攻擊并且停留戰鬥而不是參與傳統闖禍後逃走的游擊戰術，根據美國。 司令員。

在幾個最近事件，美國。 并且聯盟的隊伍在被投的爭鬥戰勝，在戰鬥機轟炸機顯示由疾風決定叛亂者之後。

空軍實力的增長的角色建議戰爭比另外的隊伍將要求更多被推薦 布什總統 并且兩個總統候選人。 它也許要求供以人員的和怯弱的航空器從一個已經被透支盡力的空軍和海軍。

并且對空軍實力的更加巨大的用途可能導致平民受害者，在贏取的地方忠誠被認為成功的鑰匙的衝突。

去年秋天，阿富汗總統 Hamid Karzai反應上升的平民死亡人數從空襲，公開地被要求美國發現一個選擇。 但只增加的空襲。

聯盟的司令員仍然調查阿富汗政府在他們的途中認為殺害47個平民到婚禮的7月6日空襲。

「我們深深後悔所有事件，平民被危害」，說皇家海軍上尉。 麥克Finney，美國的一位發言人-被帶領的軍事聯合在阿富汗。

敵對`鼓勵』

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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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under War & Terrorism News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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