Uruzgan wedding bombing

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On 1 July 2002 in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, the United States Air Force carried out an airstrike on a wedding party in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.[1][2][3] An AC130 attack plane and a B52 bomber mistook the traditional nighttime wedding celebration as a gathering of Taliban. Weapons are often shot at weddings, and thus the presence of weapons and gunfire at a wedding is not unusual. The US planes thought they were being targeted by anti-aircraft fire and attacked. Four villages were attacked and 54 civilians were killed, with 50 more injured.[1][4][3] The Afghan government backed up that it was a wedding, and that guests had fired bullets into the air in celebration.[1][3] The attack is cited as one of many errors made by Coalition forces in the early days of the Afghan War, which increasingly drove more Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The killing of innocent family members demands revenge in the Pashtunwali tradition.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "CNN.com - Afghan: U.S. bomb hits wedding party - July 1, 2002". edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  2. ^ "US bomb blunder kills 30 at Afghan wedding". the Guardian. 2002-07-02. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  3. ^ a b c "US justifies Afghan wedding bombing". 2002-09-07. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  4. ^ a b Malkasian, Carter (2021). The American war in Afghanistan : a history. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-19-755077-9. OCLC 1240264784.
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