Sunday, February 18, 2007

Fear of NATO strikes keeps Afghan villagers from their homes

by Nasrat Shoiab Sat Feb 17, 12:52 AM ET

Villagers who fled a small Afghan town captured by Taliban two weeks ago say fear of NATO strikes and being mistaken for militants are keeping them from their homes, even though supplies are running low.

Around 1,500 families from Musa Qala, in the southern province of Helmand, have collected in surrounding areas since the remote town was overrun by Taliban fighters, the provincial refugee head Abdul Satar Mazhari told AFP.

The United Nations said this week it had confirmed there were 600 displaced families and its partner agencies have started ferrying in food and other aid. An average family is said to number six people.

Most of the refugees were with friends and relatives, although some were in camps for people already displaced by the Taliban-linked unrest gripping southern Afghanistan and by drought, officials said.

"We are afraid of bombings and war," Musa Qala resident Akhtar Jan told AFP by telephone from Gereshk, where he and his family were staying with relatives.

He took his family to Gereshk, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) south of Musa Qala, soon after Taliban fighters overran the area on February 2.

"Taliban are there. If they (the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF) attack the Taliban, we will suffer," he said.

The government, wary of more civilian deaths in an area in which ordinary people have already become victims of fighting between militants and the security forces, wants to use negotiations to persuade the rebels to leave.

A tribal elder told AFP last week, however, that the rebels had rejected talks.

ISAF has used precision air strikes to take out two leaders of the uprising but this seems to have failed to dislodge the rebels.

Shopkeeper Haji Nasim said he brought his family to Gereshk the day after the fighters arrived -- according to some reports in their hundreds.

"I came out the second day Taliban took over. I closed my shop and we've nothing to eat," he said, also by telephone from the remote area.

Another Musa Qala resident, Tor Jan, took his family to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, 90 kilometres south of Musa Qala, and said money was beginning to run low two weeks after their departure.

"We haven't got anything," Tor Jan said by phone from a refugee camp. "Our cash savings are running out. If the situation continues this way, we will have to (get) back home as soon as it's OK," he said.

Tor Jan said he was concerned about being mistaken for a Taliban fighter because of his appearance and customs.

Most men in southern Afghanistan wear turbans and beards, as do the Taliban. Many may also be Taliban sympathisers, even though they have not taken up arms against the government and its foreign allies.

"If we go home and bombing starts on Taliban, there is no difference between us and Taliban," Tor Jan said. "They would take us to Guantanamo, Bagram or Kandahar," he said, referring to US military detention facilities.

A controversial deal last year gave authority in Musa Qala to the town's elders, who said they wanted Taliban and British ISAF soldiers to keep out, after fighting there caused severe damage and disrupted normal life.

Defence Minister Rahim Wardak said Thursday that troops were ready for action to take the town but were awaiting the outcome of negotiations.

"We will be continuing to observe developments in Musa Qala but whenever the time is right and we get the approval of the political authorities, we'll launch an operation," he told reporters in the capital, Kabul.

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