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Cost of carnage: US compensates families of Kandahar slaughter victims

Published time: March 26, 2012 14:34
Edited time: March 26, 2012 18:34
In a photograph taken on March 11, 2012, Afghan villagers sit in vehicles as they prepare to remove the victims of a shooting from homes in the village of Alkozai in Kandahar Province (AFP Photo / Jangir)

The United States has paid compensation to the families of 17 killed and 7 wounded in the Kandahar massacre on March 11.

­US officers met with the families of the victims and local tribal leaders at the office of Kandahar Governor on Sunday. The US paid about $47,000 for each person killed in the rampage, while those who were wounded in the shooting received about $11,000 each.

The ransom was paid in the local currency, Afghan officials said. The amount of the compensation is quite significant, especially given that an average monthly income in Afghanistan is $30-40 per month.

It is unusual for the Pentagon to compensate victims of US military attacks monetarily. But escalating tensions in the country and Afghan outrage over the incident seem to leave Washington no other choice.

“The compensation was on behalf of America’s government and was meant to ease the anger of these victims and encourage them not to take any violent actions,” a local official Agha Lalai Dastgiri said.

However, he added, the ransom and official apologies might be not enough to prevent revenge attacks.

On March 11, 17 Afghan people, including nine children were killed in a shooting rampage in two villages in the province of Kandahar. US Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with the murders as a lone gunman, but Afghan authorities claim that up to 20 US soldiers participated in the massacre.

The US investigation is still underway and the motives behind the attack have not been revealed yet.

Comments (17)

eman (unregistered) 05.11.2012 21:30

Meanwhile...We have the entire population of the country ENSLAVED as our poppy farmers, growing over $300,000,000 worth of OPIUM/HEROIN annually. We control over 95% of the entire global market of opiates! That kind of market control means we control everything about it! We control the prices, we control it all.... We make sure to pump most of it into Russia and Iran, countries we seek to hurt. Meanwhile, all the BLACK MONEY which the drug sales generate are used to FUND TERRORISM against IRAN and SYRIA... and pay for whatever else stuff we need to do under the table. Black money is HUGELY importan t to COVERT OPERATIONS. The whole reason we invaded Afghan in the first place is because OUR FRIENDS (AL COCKYA) turned their back on the deal we had...and they stopped sending us our DRUG MONEY...So 2 months after they CUT OFF ALL OPIUM GROWING WE INVADED AND MADE SURE THE PRODUCTION BROKE A WORLD RECORD EVERY CONSECUTIVE YEAR! OUR SOLDIERS ARE THERE PROTECTING POPPY FIELDS! 

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Sham on: Get Real 29.03.2012 18:52

Obviously your dollar paper worth nothing that is well established world wide, secondly you have a low value for human beings it only reflects how much you value yourself.

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amjad 27.03.2012 13:50

Man in Afghan Uniform Kills NATO Service Members VO A News March 26, 2012 NATO says an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform has opened fire on coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, killin g two service members. The alliance says the assailant was killed Monday when coalition forces returned fire. The attacker has not been identified. The Associated Press reports the two service members were British soldiers. NATO has not formally released information about the nationalities of the dead service members.

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