Afghan Refugees Fleeing Violence

Just a heads up from the discredited NYT but also from CommonDreams about refugees from the violence in the war-torn south of Afghanistan:

He, like many of the displaced people, complained that villagers found themselves trapped between Taliban fighters, who used the villages for cover to attack foreign forces, and NATO and American forces, which would often call in airstrikes on village compounds where civilians were living.

“We left our houses because we had no power to resist the Taliban or the government,” said Mr. Muhammad, the representative who brought families to Kabul from villages in Kajaki.

“Anytime the Taliban fired a shot from our houses, then the coalition, the government and the police came to the area and hit us.”

“The government comes and arrests us, and then the Taliban come and arrest us as well,” he said. “We are under the feet of two powers.”

As a civilian plane circled above the city, Mr. Muhammad and the crowd of men around him all looked nervously upward. “We are in trouble with these things,” he said, pointing at the plane. “There was fighting in the village a hundred times, roadside bombs, bombardment, firing and shooting.”

His strongest complaints were against the Taliban who, he said, had accused a relative of being a spy for the coalition forces and executed him. “I absolutely know he was not,” he said vehemently.

“The Taliban are coming during the night, with heavy weapons, riding on vehicles, and we cannot even dare ask them to leave, because if they see someone at night outside they will slaughter them and accuse them of being spies,” he said.

But the heavy reprisals by NATO and American forces was what drove them from their homes in the end, he and others said.