KABUL, Mar 3 (NNN-ANA) -The U.S.-led coalition forces may have run from Afghanistan last year, but the indiscriminate killing and widespread atrocities committed against the Afghan people during the occupation will haunt the victims and their families for years.
Abdul Wajid witnessed whole-scale slaughter in southern Helmand Province. “For 20 years, we watched killing, destruction and terror. Our business, trade, economy and agriculture were reduced to zero,” Wajid, who is in his thirties, said recently.
Following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington D.C., the United States accused Afghanistan of harbouring Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and invaded the country in Oct, 2001.
During the Afghan war, started by the U.S., more than 30,000 innocent civilians were killed and about 11 million people have become refugees.
Countless Afghans were killed, thousands in Sangin. Abdul Ghani was already old when the U.S. forces arrived in town many years ago. “They killed six of my family and drove me out of my house. I had to leave everything, including the children,” he said.
Ghani, and many like him, need support just to get through his daily life, let alone rebuild the ruins of his home. “The Americans didn’t come here to build the country, they came here to destroy it,” he said.– NNN-ANA
