The Kandahar Massacre: Afghanistan's 3/11 & The Pakistani Young Man Who Coined It

Imagine this: a group of women and children are sound asleep in the dead of night in a village. Suddenly, a group of deranged men barge in, carrying machine guns. They spray bullets, pick surviving children and then shoot them on their foreheads. Then they burn the bodies. Then they walk out of the house and walk several kilometers for several minutes. They reach another house where they carry out a similar carnage.

A total of 16 Afghans, mostly women and children, are executed and burned.

Would this shake your conscience?

It did shake Tabish.

Tabish Qayyum is a young Pakistani from Karachi. He is one of the founders of a monthly magazine called The Fortress.

The tragedy in Kandahar moved him deeply. So he coined the term, 'Afghanistan's 3/11.'

He also wrote a great piece: Afghanistan's 3/11: We Will Never Forget.

One reason Qayyum's article is important is the eyewitness account. He wrote the following description of what happened from information given by multiple credible Afghan witnesses. Take this chilling sample:

"The houses attacked are at least two miles apart. It is not possible for a single gunman to kill and burn people in one house and then run several kilometers to do the same thing again without being resisted and overpowered. Eleven of the dead Afghans belonged to the same family and nine of the victims were children, including infants found soaked in blood close to the bodies of their mothers. Afghan sources in Pajwayi claim to have photographs of half-burned bodies of women and children. The media has already shown blood-spattered walls and floors of the two houses where American soldiers committed the massacre. Some local villagers have reported seeing two groups of soldiers. The Afghan defense ministry also believes in its initial assessment that there is a possibility of more than one soldier being involved. Afghan President Hamid Karzai believes in the possibility that more than one US soldier was involved. In his statement after the massacre, Karzai quotes a 15-year old survivor Rafiullah as telling him in a phone call that American ‘soldiers’ raided the house and woke up his family members before shooting them."

Qayyum is being farsighted when he tries to make this incident a watershed in America's occupation of Afghanistan, a 3/11 for the Afghans, equivalent to what 9/11 was to the Americans.

Why is this incident a watershed?

To get a brief and a stunning answer, read what the Afghanistan Analysis Team at PakNationalists PAC has written in a report titled, Are US Soldiers Turning Against Their Commanders In Afghanistan?

Here's a quote from this stunning report:

"The fact that US soldiers chose to kill Pashtun women and children in Kandahar is not accidental. This is happening because of irresponsible official American statements that blamed Pashtun Taliban ‘infiltrators’ for killing American military trainers. The truth is that Afghans from all backgrounds have participated in riots against occupying US army. The Afghan intelligence officer who killed a US Army colonel and major inside the secured interior ministry building in Kabul on Jan. 25 was not a Pashtun but a Tajik.  Despite this, US officials blamed the Pashtuns to hide the fact that the US-trained Afghan army, which is largely non-Pashtun, is now turning its weapons on American trainers."

While at it, you might want to see the video by AP at the top [or click here to see it]. It focuses on one of the largest US army bases inside the United States and why soldiers trained their often end up committing atrocities like the one in Kandahar on 3/11.

Our region has seen a lot of bloodshed. The American occupation of Afghanistan continues only because the CIA and US military's special-ops teams don't want to let go of this playground. Bad allies, like India, are advising the Americans not to leave so that India could continue using Afghan soil to foment terrorism inside Pakistan in the guise of religious terrorists. India is also linked to two fictional terrorist groups that it uses to carry out terrorism inside Pakistan. One is Balochistan Liberation Army and the other one is Sindh Liberation Army. The CIA is known to be helping the Indians with the first one, but the second one appears to be an exclusively Indian venture.

We, Pakistanis and Afghans, count on the good American people to counter the disinformation by Pentagon, CIA and their allies in mainstream media who are advising 'perseverance and patience' to camouflage their intention of never leaving Afghanistan.

An Afghanistan free of American, NATO and Indian occupation is good for the region and good for America and the world.