In These New Times

• Drafts statement seeking condemnation of US airstrike that killed 90 civilians
• Afghanistan says wants to regulate US troops’ presence and use of air strikes

Daily Times
UNITED NATIONS: Russia, at odds with the United States over Georgia, tried unsuccessfully to push the UN Security Council on Tuesday to condemn US-led air strikes in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians.

The Russian delegation had drafted a statement that would say the council’s 15 member states are “seriously concerned” about the US-led coalition attacks on August 22, which the UN mission in Afghanistan says it believes killed 90 civilians, most of them children. The draft statement, which several diplomats said had no chance of getting the unanimous backing it would need for approval, also says council members “deplore” the fact that this has happened before in Afghanistan.

“I think the Russians want to divert attention from Georgia and annoy the Americans,” said one diplomat. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin declined to comment when asked whether the draft statement was linked to the Georgian crisis. “We hope it’s going to be adopted by the council,” he told reporters. Belgian Ambassador Jan Grauls, the current president of the Security Council, told reporters after the meeting there was no agreement among council members on the Russian statement.

The US military has launched an investigation of the incident, after first saying it was unaware of any civilian casualties in an air strike on a known Taliban commander that killed 30 militants. Grauls said it would be preferable to wait for the results of the investigations before making any statements about what happened.

Reining in: In a stark warning to US forces, the Afghan government said it will try to regulate the presence of US troops and their use of airstrikes after air attacks killed 90 civilians. The UN sent in a team of investigators, who relied solely on villagers’ statements in alleging the American-led operation in the western province of Herat on Friday killed 60 children and 30 adults. The US military stood by its account, that 25 militants and five civilians were killed in the operation. “I don’t have any information that would suggest that our military commanders in Afghanistan don’t believe, still, that this was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target,” Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said in Washington.

Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the legal framework for the presence of US troops in Afghanistan was established in a 2003 agreement between Kabul and Washington. Done via an exchange of diplomatic notes, the pact is considered a bilateral agreement and is like a status of forces agreement, Ryder said. agencies