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Anger Grows at Civilian Deaths by US, Afghan Forces

Associated Press

   JALALABAD, AFGHANISTAN - The workers were sleeping on the mountainside
   where they had spent a long day harvesting pine nuts in eastern
   Afghanistan. Some were in tents, others lay outside under the stars,
   when the U.S. airstrike tore into them.

   Only hours before the Sept. 19 strike, the businessman who hired them
   had heard there was a drone over the mountain and called Afghanistan's
   intelligence agency to remind an official his workers were there -- as
   he'd notified the agency days earlier.

   "He laughed and said, 'Don't worry they are not going to bomb you,'"
   the businessman, Aziz Rahman, recalled.

   Twenty workers were killed in the strike, including seven members of
   one family. A relative, Mohammed Hasan, angrily described body parts
   they found scattered on the ground, gesturing at his arm, his leg, his
   head.

   "This is not their (Americans') first mistake," said Hasan. "They say
   'sorry.' What are we supposed to do with 'sorry?' ... People now are
   angry. They are so angry with the foreigners, with this government."

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