Airstrike angers Afghan leaders

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan government rejects the findings of a U.S. military report that cleared an American warplane crew in the deaths of dozens of civilians at a wedding party, but it doesn't plan to press the matter because of its sensitivity, officials said Wednesday.\nTribal Affairs Minister Mohammed Arif Noorzai, who headed a joint Afghan-U.S. team that conducted a separate investigation of the July 1 attack, said the American raid was "a mistake."\n"All our people reject this report. Anybody with any common sense would reject this report," he told The Associated Press.\nAfghan authorities say 48 civilians were killed and 117 wounded when an Air Force AC-130 gunship strafed five villages in Uruzgan. The dead included 25 members of an extended family celebrating a wedding, the Afghans said.\nA summary of the U.S. military inquiry, released Sept. 6, said American authorities confirmed 34 dead and about 50 wounded. The U.S. report acknowledged the dead were civilians, but said the attack was justified because the plane had come under hostile fire.\nAfghan officials and survivors, however, say celebrants at a wedding party were firing rifles into the air -- a tradition in Afghanistan -- when the Americans flew over and mistook it for an attack, unleashing a hail of return fire.\nThe attacks strained relations between the United States and the Afghan government. President Hamid Karzai said "all necessary measures" should be taken to avoid future civilian casualties and urged closer coordination between U.S. and Afghan forces.\nHowever, few government officials have come out publicly against the U.S. report, and the government had previously issued no statement about it.\nKarzai's government relies heavily on the United States for political, military and diplomatic support. U.S. officials helped engineer Karzai's rise to the presidency because they wanted a prominent figure from the majority Pashtun community who was not tainted by Taliban membership.\nMore than 7,000 American troops remain in the country, conducting operations in search of senior Taliban leaders and suspected terrorists.\nKarzai, who survived an assassination attempt Sept. 5, is protected by American bodyguards.\nNoorzai said President Bush apologized to Karzai for the July 1 attack when the two met in New York earlier this month. There has been no such acknowledgment by U.S. authorities.\n"The Americans made a mistake, but they apologized. That's enough," Noorzai said.\nThe investigative report put the blame for the attack on those who fired at U.S. gunship crew. It also said reconnaissance patrols heard gunfire and explosions throughout the day and night, indicating the area "appeared to support enemy military training." Helicopters inserting those patrols also came under fire, the report said. The Uruzgan region is home to the extended families of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, though none of the victims are known to be his relatives.\n"The operators of those weapons elected to place them in civilian communities and elected to fire them at coalition forces at a time when they knew there were a significant number of civilians present," the report said.\nU.S. investigators found no evidence of anti-aircraft weapons at the two compounds where the casualties occurred, but they did find about a dozen shell casings for heavy machine guns.\n"They wanted to find some Taliban or al Qaeda members, but they didn't find anything. There were no Taliban or al Qaeda there, which shows it was a mistake," Noorzai said.\nThe Cabinet minister said the Americans made the raid based on false intelligence given to them by Afghan informants.\n"Americans are our friends and they are here because they want to help us. Everyone makes a mistake. The matter is behind us now." Noorzai said.