Starting with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, millions of Afghans fled for sanctuary to the border region in Pakistan. The Afghan-Pakistan border, devised in the 19th century by British colonialists, continues to be contentious because it divides Pashtuns of the same cultural, religious, & historic heritage. But now, the Pakistan military, bankrolled & probably functioning as a proxy to the US Pentagon, is bombing the smithereens out of Pakistan’s North Waziristan region along the same border. So tens of thousands of Pashtun residents–both Pakistanis & Afghan refugees–are fleeing, including back across the border to Afghanistan. The barbarisms of the US-NATO war & of Pakistan’s involvement are highlighted in all their treacheries by this frantic diaspora.
As of November 2012, the US Pentagon stopped reporting on drone strikes in Afghanistan so there is no data on how many strikes there have been or how many civilians have been killed–all by US & UK aircraft. We do know that in the three-year period from 2009 to 2012, there were 1,273 drone strikes launched in Afghanistan. That is three times more drone strikes in Afghanistan than the CIA admits to carrying out in Pakistan over the past ten years.
According to a recent UN report, after the Pentagon clammed up on drone data, civilian drone deaths in Afghanistan tripled in 2013 & drones are not the only bombing aircraft used. The UN report identifies 19 separate incidents in which civilians were killed by drones & raised the possibility of negligence. How about raising the possibility of war crimes against the people of Afghanistan!?
This child is a Pashtun refugee from North Waziristan seeking asylum from the bombing by crossing the border into Khost, Afghanistan. The barbaric irony of all this takes ones breath away.
No US-NATO war in Afghanistan! No US war in Pakistan! No US war in Iraq!
(Photo by Bilal Sarwary)