MONDAY,OCT.29,2001
NATION & WORLD
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
U.S. strikes kill 13 civilians
The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan American air strikes against the Taliban spilled over yesterday into residential neighborhoods of the Afghan capital, killing 13 civilians - the second time in as many days that missiles have accidentally hit homes and killed residents.
Later yesterday, U.S. jets were back over the slies of the beleaguered Afghan capital, and strong explosions could be heard in the direction of the main road from Kabul to the opposition-controlled Bagram air base.
Witnesses said 10 people were killed in the Qali Hotair neighborhood on Kabul's northern edge. An Associated Press reporter saw six bodies, four of them children.
Three other people died near an eastern housing complex called Macroyan, eyewitnesses said.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesmen had no immediate
comment on the latest strikes and the civilian casualties involved. It has stressed repeatedly that civilians were never deliberately targeted.
The strikes that hit Kabul came only 12 hours after stray bombs landed Saturday evening behind the rebel military alliance's battle lines north of the capital. Areas behind Taliban lines were also reported hit.
Eight or nine civilians were killed—most of them in alliance-held areas, according to witnesses.
In neighboring Pakistan, where the government has had to work to keep a lid on pro-Taliban unrest, there was growing concern over civilian casualties.
"We feel the military action should possibly be short and targeted in order to avoid civilian casualties," Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said after meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Pakistan's main radical Islamic party vowed to step up the challenge to Musharraf, saying it and other religious groups would meet today to plan a 10-day protest in the capital to topple the president.
Rebels confronting Taliban troops north of the capital had been complaining publicly that the American air strikes weren't doing enough to advance their cause. It wasn't known if Saturday's heavy raids were in response to that.
The opposition's spokesman, Abdullah, who uses only one name, called the damage to the Taliban front lines from Saturday's raids significant and said if such heavy bombardment were routinely employed, "the objective of eradicating terrorism could be achieved much quicker."
the civilian deaths, he said,
were an unfortunate mistake.
"Of course we know this wasn't a deliberate targeting." Abdullah said. "We have to coordinate."
Memorial service held for victims at World Trade Center ruins
The Associated Press
"They were innocent and they were brutally, viciously, unjustly taken from us," said Egan, the leader of New York's Roman Catholic archdiocese.
NEW YORK - With the smoldering gray rubble of the World Trade Center a sorrowful backdrop, the families of people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks gathered yesterday for a memorial service filled with prayer and song.
Thousands of mourners, some holding photographs of their loved ones, rose from their plastic chairs as Police Officer Daniel Rodriguez opened the service with "The Star-Spangled Banner." Cardinal Edward Egan delivered the invocation, standing at a podium draped in black.
"We are in mourning, Lord
We have hardly any tears left to shed," he said.
"We are neighbors, we are family members and we are friends — and we hurt," said Imam Izak-El Mu'eed Pasha, the Police Department's Muslim chaplain. "Let us stand together and pray and not let our faiths be used in such a way... They cannot use our faiths and do these terrible things."
For only the second time in the seven weeks since the attack, the round-the-clock recovery and demolition work at the site was halted to allow for the memorial service. The first time was on Oct. 11 at 8:48 a.m.—one month to the minute after the first hijacked plane struck the trade center's north tower—when a moment of silence was observed.
city officials estimated the
crowd at 9,200, far more than expected. Mourners filled the rows of chairs to capacity; some people were forced to stand.
Although water was sprayed on smoldering spots in the wreckage before the service, a smoky cloud hung over the crowd.
crowd.
Josh Vicente, a teenager who lost his uncle, 30-year-old Tom Pecorelli, said that not having a body to bury had made the death particularly difficult. Pecorelli, a cameraman for Fox Sports, was a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower.
"We didn't see him again," Vicente said. "There was no coffin, no funeral. It still seems like he'll call again."
Later, families were given wooden urns by the city containing soil from ground zero.