Unintended Victims fill Afghan Hospital
John Donnelly: Globe Staff
December 05, 2001

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - The intensive care unit of the Jalalabad Public Hospital was full yesterday with children and mothers from the Agam region. It was oddly quiet. They were victims of an American bombing, and they bore the look of disbelief on their blood-speckled faces.

In one bed lay Noor Mohammad, 10, who was a bundle of bandages. He lost his eyes and hands to the bomb that hit his house after Sunday dinner. Hospital director Guloja Shimwari shook his head at the boy's wounds.

''The United States must be thinking he is Osama,'' Shimwari said. ''If he is not Osama, then why would they do this?''
The boy's village is about 15 miles north of the Tora Bora cave complex, which US officials and some Afghan commanders believe may house the suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. Bombs dropped Saturday and Sunday killed about 18 people in the Agam region and injured dozens more, villagers and hospital officials say.

Even as Afghan military commanders here sent troops to Tora Bora to root out bin Laden and his Al Qaeda fighters, the anger over the civilian deaths in the area has only deepened.

From Friday through Monday, a stretch of intense US bombing aimed at members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorist network who have taken refuge in these hills, the hospital received a steady flow of bomb victims. Five victims arrived Friday, 18 Saturday, 13 Sunday and Monday, almost all coming by private car after journeys that lasted for several hours. Yesterday there were no new arrivals by early afternoon, a relief to health workers.

The hospital's morgue received 17 bodies last weekend, and officials here estimate at least 89 civilians were killed in several villages.
In the hospital yesterday, a bomb's damage could be chronicled in the life of one family.

A bomb had killed the father, Faisal Karim. In one bed was his wife, Mustafa Jama, who had severe head injuries. Her left eye was swollen shut; her right eye barely opened. ''She is in trouble,'' said Dr. Shafiquallah Atish. ''Her condition is grave.''

Around her, six of her children were in bandages. They ranged from 18-year-old Brishna to 10-month-old Raheem. One of them, Zahidullah, 8, lay in a coma.
The only child who escaped unharmed was Ismait Ullah, 11. Yesterday she held the baby, Raheem, and watched out for her twin 2-year-old sisters, Zairaab and

Shahida, who shared a bed. When the baby let out a soft cry, Ismait rubbed Raheem's chest and sang to her softly. The baby put her bandaged head on her older sister's bony shoulder, and closed her eyes.

''We were sitting in one room when the bombing started,'' Ismait said. ''I survived because I was standing under the wood frame of the house,'' a spot that didn't collapse. The only other adult from the family at the hospital was one of the children's uncles, Niz Mohammed. He remained by the side of Zahidullah, the boy in a coma. ''America says it has well-targeted bombs, but our home is [15 miles] from Tora Bora,'' Mohammed said. ''Maybe they were targeting a district building, which was near our house.''

He said that the villagers viewed Al Qaeda as ''our enemy. We would never let them in our village. What the Americans did was a brutal action.''
Many of the injuries have gone unreported because the victims never make it to the hospital, which has only two ambulances. Mohammed used his own car to drive the family five hours over long, barren stretches of terrain to the hospital.

US officials have acknowledged that their intense bombing raids have inflicted more civilian deaths, especially around Jalalabad and the southern city of Kandahar, two areas where Taliban and Al Qaeda units are believed to be strong. Verifying the number of casualties usually falls to international aid organizations like the Red Cross.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a press briefing yesterday, addressed questions about civilian deaths and injuries and said that determining the facts on the ground is difficult in what is an increasingly chaotic country.

At the hospital yesterday, Mohammed spoke in a low voice, not wanting to disturb the others, including the 10-year-old boy who lost his eyes and hands.
Every so often over the past two days, the boy would talk softly to his uncle, Saed Hassan.

''Sometimes he says that a dog must have bit him. Sometimes he says bad words about himself,'' as if he had done something wrong, Hassan said. ''Sometimes he says he hears the sound of airplanes dropping bombs and he says he needs to run and get out of the room.''

The uncle leaned to Noor Mohammad and asked how he felt. ''I feel cold,'' the boy said. ''I cannot talk.'' He fell silent in the quiet ward.

Boston Globe on 12/5/2001.