US drone attack on funeral kills 34 in east Afghanistan

[Insight]

US drone attack on funeral kills 34 in east Afghanistan


Fri Jun 5, 2015 12:50PM






At least 34 people have been killed in a US drone strike on a funeral ceremony in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Khost, Press TV reports.
Local authorities said on Friday that the drone struck an area in the mountainous region of Khost, close to Pakistan’s border.
Deputy Governor of Khost Province, Abdul Wahid Patan, told reporters that the attack targeted an area in Ali Shir, the Tere Zayi District of the province, at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0900 GMT).
According to Patan, all the victims were members of the Taliban militant group.
He added that the militants were holding a funeral ceremony for one of their leaders, who was killed by Afghan forces on Thursday.
The Taliban have not commented on the airstrike yet.
The strike in Khost came a day after Nangarhar Province, also in eastern Afghanistan, was targeted in two similar drone attacks that killed 17 people. The strikes were carried out in the districts of Haska Mina and Chaparhar.
Washington employs unmanned aerial vehicles in an alleged bid to target terrorists in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Local officials and witnesses, however, say that the drone strikes have mostly claimed the lives of civilians over the past years.
MIS/HSN


http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/06...t-Drone-Strike

[Insight]

US Drones Attack Afghanistan Funeral, Killing 34 Mourners

Afghan Govt Claims All Slain Were Taliban

by Jason Ditz, June 05, 2015



On Friday, US drones attacked a funeral in Afghanistan’s Khost Province, tearing through a crowd of mourners and leaving at least 34 of them dead. The funeral was reportedly for a Taliban fighter, and the Afghan government insisted that by extension, all the mourners must’ve been Taliban too.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid confirmed the strike, but insisted a number of the victims were innocent civilians from the nomadic tribe the slain fighter was a member of . Afghan MPs from the region similarly claimed a number of civilians were slain.
Oddly, while everyone else was reporting the attack was on a funeral inside a cemetery, Khost provincial police claimed the US strike was against Taliban forces who were “running away” from the police along the Pakistan border.
Civilian tolls in US strikes have posed a huge problem for Afghan governments in the past, and former President Hamid Karzai’s feckless criticism both angered locals (since it never seemed to stop future attacks) and alienated him from the US. So far, President Ghani seems to be trying to avoid comment on such incidents.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/05/us-drones-attack-afghanistan-funeral-killing-34-mourners/