Civilian Casualties

BAGHDAD -- The death toll for Iraqi civilians and American forces rose inexorably yesterday as a car bomb ripped through crowds of worshipers in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, killing at least 60 people, and U.S. military authorities announced the deaths of nine soldiers and Marines. U.S. deaths have surged in April. Details were sketchy of the Karbala attack, the second in the city this month. The car bomb apparently exploded at the checkpoint closest to a mosque that is one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines.

Baghdad -- A U.S. airstrike left at least 11 dead in a village in northern Iraq yesterday, heightening an Iraqi backlash over the civilian toll of American military actions. The military said in a statement that a helicopter fired on a group of men believed to be a cell that places roadside bombs. The men then took refuge in a nearby house and continued to engage U.S. troops, the military said. The statement said 11 Iraqis were killed, including a militant known to be a member of a bomb cell.

WASHINGTON -- An upgraded 1-ton Air Force missile -- fired for the first time two weeks ago in Iraq -- missed its target Monday and struck a residential neighborhood outside Basra, Pentagon officials said yesterday.While the Pentagon is trying to determine whether mechanical or human error caused the AGM-130 to slam into the al-Jumhuriya neighborhood and cause civilian casualties, the Air Force will continue using the missile during its patrols of the "no-fly" zones, officials said.Three U.S. jets fired at military targets in the northern no-fly zone again yesterday, hitting missile, artillery and radar sites after being threatened by surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire, the Pentagon said.

WASHINGTON -- Pentagon and NATO officials acknowledged yesterday that a U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot mistakenly struck a civilian vehicle in southwestern Kosovo on Wednesday, thinking he was targeting a Serbian military convoy.The officials apologized for the attack, which killed an uncertain number of civilians, presumably ethnic Albanians.But they vowed to press on with even more intensified airstrikes and said the Yugoslav government was ultimately to blame for any civilian casualties caused by NATO airstrikes.

WASHINGTON -- For an air war that many U.S. generals believe has been run on the cheap, tactically, the bombardment of Yugoslavia could go down as the most expensive military campaign, bomb for bomb, in history.The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, likes to brag that 90 percent of the bombs dropped in the 40-day operation have been precision-guided, compared to only 9 percent in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, reducing risks to civilians on the ground.But the cost of keeping the civilian casualties low is steep.

WASHINGTON -- An American missile may have struck a residential neighborhood and caused civilian casualties yesterday morning during an attack on Iraqi air defenses, U.S. officials acknowledged.But Iraqi officials said two residential neighborhoods outside the southern port city of Basra were struck in the raids, killing 11 people and injuring 59. Western television reporters said they saw several houses destroyed or partially damaged.U.S. officials acknowledged the possible accident late yesterday, after receiving protests from Iraqi officials and viewing televised pictures of damaged homes.

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Britain ended a four-day campaign of cruise missile and bomb attacks against Iraq last night, with President Clinton declaring that he was "confident we have achieved our mission" and the Pentagon reporting no casualties among attacking forces.In a brief televised speech from the White House less than five hours after he had been impeached, Clinton said that an early assessment of the 70-hour air campaign showed Iraq's ability to develop weapons of mass destruction had suffered "significant damage."

I have only one problem with our missile attack on Baghdad: The time of day it occurred.Our Tomahawk missiles landed on Iraqi intelligence headquarters at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night.Why that late?I thought we were supposed to be killing terrorists, not cleaning ladies.While I have never been to Iraq, I have been to the Middle East and I can tell you there are very few eager-beaver types at their desks at 2 a.m.Why would you be trying to impress your boss if you worked for Saddam Hussein? What would it get you?

Washington.For many centuries, the West derived its martial ethic from a book. Homer's ''Iliad'' celebrated combat in close quarters, between symmetrically armed adult male warriors, on neutral ground, far from women and children. Individuals' virtues, such as strength and bravery, not differences of weapons, were decisive. Hence the Homer's disdain for the bow: ''My way is not to fight my battles standing far away from my enemies.''But long-range killing -- by gun, bomb, missile -- became approved almost as quickly as it became possible.

Washington.Those who urged restraint instead of war will have a thousand chances to say "I told you so" before it's over. The bombing of the Baghdad bunker where hundreds of civilians were sheltered is the most painful instance so far.It was inevitable that there would be civilian casualties in a massive bombing campaign. It was predictable that in today's satellite-linked world, the aggrieved party would make political propaganda of those casualties.Knowing this, President Bush could have avoided this week's international controversy by avoiding war. Instead, he went along with Pentagon planners who gave him the familiar assurances that they could conduct surgical air strikes, limited to known military facilities.

Tensions between Western forces and the Afghan government flared anew yesterday when President Hamid Karzai and a provincial governor accused the U.S.-led coalition of killing 14 Afghans guarding a road construction project. Karzai has demanded repeatedly that Western troops take urgent measures to avoid killing and injuring Afghan civilians. Recent high-profile instances of civilian casualties have inflamed public sentiment not only against foreign forces in Afghanistan but against the U.S.-backed government.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A NATO airstrike yesterday on a village near the embattled provincial capital of Lashkar Gah killed 25 to 30 civilians, Afghan officials in the area said. While NATO confirmed that an airstrike had taken place in the area, where Taliban fighters have been battling NATO forces, it said the reports were being investigated and the command was "unable to confirm any civilian casualties." Reliable information on the airstrike - whether it caused the deaths, as local officials and residents reported, and whether the number of civilian deaths was accurate - was elusive.

AZIZABAD, Afghanistan: To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: More than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed. The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a U.N. investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cell-phone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. military investigation concluded yesterday that only five to seven civilians and 30 to 35 Taliban were killed in an airstrike operation in western Afghanistan last month, far fewer than the 90 civilians that the Afghan government and the United Nations found in their preliminary investigations. Two civilians were also wounded, the U.S. command said in a statement. The military investigation was a standard internal one and comes ahead of a joint investigation it has agreed to conduct with the United Nations and the Afghan government to try to reconcile the vastly differing accounts of what happened early Aug. 22 in the village of Azizabad and how many people died.

WASHINGTON - Daily airstrikes by U.S. and allied fighter-bombers in Afghanistan have almost doubled since last summer, according to U.S. Air Force data, a trend that reflects increased insurgent attacks but also raises concerns about civilian casualties. The growing reliance on airstrikes by U.S. commanders in Afghanistan appears to mark a turn in the course of the war. Responding to requests from ground commanders, allied aircraft over the past week have pummeled enemy ground targets an average of 68 times a day across Afghanistan, dropping 500- and 2,000-pound guided bombs and strafing enemy forces with cannon fire, according to Air Force daily strike reports.

JERUSALEM -- At least 18 Palestinians, including children and civilians, and three Israeli soldiers were reported killed yesterday in heavy fighting in Gaza, in one of the bloodiest days in weeks. The Israeli military said it had struck armed militants and was checking the reports of civilian casualties. Amid the violence, Israel resumed the pumping of emergency fuel supplies into Gaza after a weeklong suspension. The flow stopped April 9 after Palestinian militant groups attacked the sole fuel depot along Israel's border with Gaza, killing two Israeli civilians who worked there.

Baghdad -- A U.S. airstrike left at least 11 dead in a village in northern Iraq yesterday, heightening an Iraqi backlash over the civilian toll of American military actions. The military said in a statement that a helicopter fired on a group of men believed to be a cell that places roadside bombs. The men then took refuge in a nearby house and continued to engage U.S. troops, the military said. The statement said 11 Iraqis were killed, including a militant known to be a member of a bomb cell.

BAGHDAD -- Leaders in the Iraqi parliament said yesterday that they were taking steps to examine the U.S. military presence in Iraq with an eye toward possibly restricting the force's activities, in a continuing backlash over an American raid that Iraqi officials say killed 13 civilians. Before the end of the year, the United Nations is expected to take up its annual reauthorization of a Security Council resolution that allows the presence of U.S. troops here. Iraqi leaders have charged that the U.S. military used too much force in responding to attacks, leading to the deaths of civilians, and that the Americans have not coordinated enough with Iraqi forces.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Monthly civilian casualties in Iraq dipped in June to the lowest level this year, according to the Iraqi government, but it was not immediately clear how accurate the statistics were or whether they were related to the increased presence of U.S. troops. The figures released by the Iraqi ministries of health, defense and the interior showed 1,227 Iraqi civilians killed in June, compared with 1,949 in May and 1,646 in February, when the first of 28,500 additional U.S. troops arrived here.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Somber, impatient and angry, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan accused the U.S. military and its NATO allies yesterday of carrying out "careless operations" that led to civilian casualties, asserting that "Afghan life is not cheap and should not be treated as such." His remarks, made on the front lawn of the presidential palace, came in response to a week in which more than 100 civilian deaths have been reported from airstrikes and artillery fire against the Taliban.