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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 8, 2003)
NEls NEWS THE BATTALION 7 A Monday, December 8, 2003 is shows lindivid® cases 23< 11 iM,byyej Kt 25! years ,.l /ears 1i mentionofi ice collect] wd coo[r ; tences. lint isto:- in early ste lie cone. Viet Diri ‘Tis the season JP Beato III • THE BATTALION The Ross Volunteers perform rifle drills and lead the 109 entries and traveled two miles down Texas 77th annual Holiday Parade held Sunday afternoon Avenue into Bryan. Santa's helpers also collected let- near Texas A&M. The Hollywood-themed parade had ters from children along the route. : Depart imey te mow tea® a Univffi lie risk ot place. I 1 sentences s Is, for evr lomber" servinja:: ; to liplii- tssucltaij U.S. gunship shoots children Anger and confusion follow in Afghan village By Aijaz Rahi THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HUTALA, Afghanistan — ffnf ats anc * s ^ oes Ottered a blood- l ' t0 ’ H stained field in this desolate Afghan village Sunday, a day rfter \j.S. warplanes — target- U.S. air strike kills nine children An American warplane targeting a wanted Taliban commander mistakenly killed nine children in an Afghan mountain village. id Mond l.M. (API jging up sKid’sffi m has W Kid’s li-Aniens n g a t error suspect — mistaken- NXv killed nine children. American officials offered heir regrets Sunday and said hey were “deeply saddened” by Bhe deaths. The United Nations Hailed for an investigation. And he Afghan government urged he U.S.-led coalition hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters to nake sure such an accident is lever repeated. In Hutala on Sunday, a line )f fresh graves marked the ragedy, and village men stood juietly by a stream in a dusty ield where the children had ;ourt fie< :|been playing. They seemed as ewildered as they were angry. “First they fire their rockets. Then they say it was a mistake,” rlaji Amir Mohammed told The Associated Press, as dozens of American soldiers sent to inves tigate the incident offered con- atSheriff" dolences or lay in the warming ' the W winter sun. “How can we for give them?” Villagers said the young vic tims had been playing with mar bles in a dusty field beside mud homes in this impoverished val ley, some 150 miles southwest of Kabul, when the A-10 ground attack aircraft homed in. Military officials said Sunday they had no idea chil dren were in the area when they decided to attack. U.S. an heanti drtS# Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the suspect targeted and killed was a former Taliban commander named Mullah Wazir, adding that he was “deeply saddened” by the “trag ic loss of innocent life.” Khalilzad said the former commander “had bragged of his personal involvement in attacks on innocent Afghan citizens,” including aid groups and Afghans working on the Kabul- Kandahar road, a site of fre quent violence. Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the coalition, told the AP in Hutala that it had appeared to the pilot of the air craft that “just that person that we wanted, that terrorist, was in the field. So we fired on him.” Troops discovered the chil dren’s bodies after rushing to the scene to verify that they had got Wazir. U.S. officers flew in NEWS IN BRIEF Sunday to apologize to village elders, Hilferty said. But residents were adamant that the military had acted on bogus intelligence. Many said the man killed was not Wazir, and that the former district com mander under the Taliban had left the village some days before the attack. “There are no terrorists, no Taliban or al-Qaida here,” said Abdul Majid Farooqi. “Just poor people.” The 11,500 U.S.-led troops hunting Taliban and al-Qaida rem nants in south and east Afghanistan often are supported by air power, and there have been a string of military mishaps. The worst occurred in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship in Uruzgan province, which borders Ghazni province. On April 9, a U.S. warplane mistakenly bombed a home in the eastern town of Shkin, killing 11 civilians. Another air strike in Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan on Oct. 31 reportedly killed at least eight civilians in a house. “This incident, which fol lows similar incidents, adds to a sense of insecurity and fear in the country,” Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan, said in Kabul. The Afghan government said it fully supported fighting terror ism but urged the U.S.-led coali tion to “be very careful not to repeat such tragedies.” College Board adds Chinese to Advanced Placement program NEW YORK (AP) — The College Board, which offers talented high school students a chance to earn college credits, announced it will offer an Advanced Placement program in Chinese language and culture. The new program is a joint venture of the College Board and the Chinese government, which will contribute $685,000 to develop the tests — about half the cost. Muslim football tournament's team names sparks protest IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — It was planned as a way to bring young athletes together for a weekend of fun, but when participants in the Muslim Football tournament started naming their teams Intifada, Soldiers of Allah and Mujahideen, Jewish leaders took offense. Intifada means “uprising” in Arabic and is the term applied to suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis in the Middle East. Mujahideen means holy warrior. DuPont-Columbia University awards yield 13 winners NEW YORK (AP) — Coverage of the war in Iraq and government watchdog reports dominated this year’s Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, with the PBS series “Frontline” taking three of the 13 Silver Batons given for excellence in television and radio journalism. The awards were established in 1942 by the late Jessie Ball duPont in memory of her hus band. The awards period covered July 1, 2002, through June 30, 2003. 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