Khogyani elders claim 160 civilians killed in night riads

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Tribal eleders from the Khogyani district of eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday asked the government to bring night raids by 02 Special Forces Unit to a halt.

They claimed around 160 civilians, including women and children, have been killed by the 02 Unit forces in Shirzad and Hesarak districts of the province during the past one month.

Addressing a joint press conference in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, today, the Khogyani elders said several houses of civilians had been destroyed in the night raids.

 They warned of staging an uprising against the government if the operations were not stopped.

Delawar Jarnil, one of the tribal elders, said that the 02 Unit forces killed 70 people including women and children in Shirzad district alone over the last one month.

He said the government should stop the overnight operations or it would lost public support.

Aziz Khogyani, a civil society activist and tribal elder from Khogyani district, said dozens of civilians had been killed by the 02 Unit in Khogyani, Shirzad and Hesarak districts in one month.

He said the forces also destroyed people’s houses and caused financial losses to locals while many families were forced to leave their areas and displace to urban areas for their safety.

“In the past, we left our home due to Daesh and Taliban brutalities, but now we are leaving houses due to the 02 Unit oppression, if these operations continued, then we would boycott the government and then the public would decide whether to join Daesh or Taliban,” he said.

Ibarhaim Zaman, another tribal elder, said the government by conducting such operations was complelling people to uprise or join insurgent groups.

He said tribal elders, their children and women as well as Islamic scholars were not safe in their areas.

A civil society activist, Noor Agha Zwak, also voiced on the government and the international community to stop operations of the 02 Unit of the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

He said if the government did not listen to their demand, it would widen the distance between the regime and the people.

Ahmad Zahid Zahidi, who lost seven relatives to night raids of the 02 Unit Special Forces, said: “Two of my brother-in-laws, my father-in-law, my two uncles and two cousins one of them a student of Kabul Medical University were killed in a single night.”

The tribal elders after their press conference staged a brief protest, carrying photographs of the victims of night raids. They condemned the operations.

On the other hand, Nangarhar governor’s spokesman, Attaullah Khogyani, said they had received compalints from local people aobut night raids and the issue had been shared with the president.

Officails of the 02 Unit declined to talk to media.

However, NDS department in Kabul said Special Forces never conducted arbitrary operations and police and prosecutors always accompanied them.

The source said Taliban insurgents used civilian houses as their bastions to attack Afghan forces from there.

mds/ma