WASHINGTON: A video of air strikes in early May in western Afghanistan supports the U.S. military's assertion that most of the casualties were Taliban fighters, the top U.S. commander for the Afghan war said in an interview airing on Friday."What the video will prove is that the targets of these different strikes were the Taliban," Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, said in excerpts from a National Public Radio interview. He does not dispute that civilians were killed. Petraeus told NPR that the Pentagon plans to release the video in a media briefing in coming days. Afghan officials have put the death toll in the controversial strikes as high as 140 and say bombs hit houses in two villages in western Farah province in which mostly women and children were hiding. The U.S. military acknowledges 20-35 civilians were among 80-95 mostly Taliban fighters killed in the strikes during a May 3 battle in which U.S. Marines and Afghan security forces were attacked. It said the Taliban used the villagers as human shields. The United States and Afghanistan are jointly investigating reports of civilian casualties that are undermining support for the U.S. and NATO-led mission. Petraeus said he had been briefed by the brigadier general he appointed to the investigation. "There is indeed video from a B-1 Bomber that very clearly shows bombs hitting individuals who are the Taliban who are reacting to the movements of the Afghan and coalition forces on the ground," Petraeus said. Addressing how the men are identified as Taliban, Petraeus said a combination of intelligence reports and sources were confirmed by the video. "What's material is that innocent civilians were killed in this incident along... with a substantial number of Taliban, "Petraeus said. Civilian casualties have become a deep source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his U.S. backers, especially since an incident last August in which Afghan and U.N. investigators say U.S. strikes killed 90 civilians. Washington initially denied killing large numbers of civilians in that incident, only to acknowledge three months later it had killed at least 33.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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