Relatives Say Afghans Were at Al Qaeda Site For Scrap Metal to Sell
By Doug Struck, Washington Post Foreign Service
A SECTION; Pg. A13
697 words
KHOST, Afghanistan – In this desperate land long raked by combat, the debris of battle quickly becomes a prize for the scavengers of war. That was why Jahan Gir and his two friends were at a bombed al Qaeda camp when they were hit last week by a U.S. missile, their relatives say.
“They knew there were airstrikes there a few days before, so they knew they could find scrap
metal,” said Janat Khan, Gir’s uncle. “They knew there was a risk, but they had to feed their
families.”
The deaths of the three men Feb. 4 in Zhawar, a remote area 30 miles southeast of this eastern Afghan city, might have passed as the unfortunate consequence of war had the Pentagon not claimed that the victims of the rocket attack were senior members of al Qaeda, and that one of them might have been the group’s founder, Osama bin Laden.
Zhawar was used as a training camp by al Qaeda, but persistent U.S. bombing has destroyed the place and nearly half of the 50 mud houses in the closest settlement.
Most of the residents had fled to other villages or Pakistan, but during a recent lull in the
bombing, some of the families returned, said Tawil Dor, a village elder.
Among them were Gir, Mir Ahmad and Daraz, who were friends and distantly related through the village clan. They were poor and raised camels and a few cows — and collected firewood and the metal wreckage of war, said Ah-mad’s brother, Qosmat Khan, 27.
They would take the metal by camelback on a five-hour trek up steep mountain trails, avoiding Pakistani security forces, and into the Pakistani town of Miram Shah. There, scrap dealers would buy each 60 kilograms — 132 pounds — for about 250 rupees, or $ 4.15, according to Qosmat Khan.
“It’s not much, but they were able to support their families with that,” said Shawal Khan, the older brother of Da-raz, who like many Afghans used one name.
The Pentagon has said that an unmanned drone aircraft spotted the men and that the others
were acting deferen-tially toward a tall man, giving rise to speculation that he was bin Laden. The relatives of the men are puzzled by that, saying none was as tall as bin Laden — who is said to be about 6 feet 5 — and they were working together as friends.
U.S. officials said they have other unspecified intelligence about the men. One possible source
for that may be the forces of local faction commander Bacha Khan, who are guarding the U.S.
base in Khost and known to be working closely with the Americans. The first public claim that the victims were al Qaeda members came from Wazer Khan, the 17-year-old stepbrother of Bacha Khan.
In an interview, Wazer Khan, who said he was “assisting” the Americans and was found today at a base helping Americans train Afghans to search for al Qaeda members, denied being a source for the targeting of the men. But he defended his assertion that they were with al Qaeda.
“That place is al Qaeda. So the people who go there, maybe they are for al Qaeda,” he said.
“They must be al Qaeda. What else are they doing there?”
They were there making a living, Gir’s uncle said. His nephew “came down with a load of firewood from the mountains, and then said he was going out to collect some metal,” Janat Khan said. “He said he’d be back soon.”
Late that afternoon, they heard the news of the missile attack, Janat Khan said. The men of the village gathered coffins and went to retrieve the bodies.
“We were scared we would be bombed, but we had an obligation to bury them,” Qosmat Khan
said. They had to collect the pieces of two of the men. Daraz’s body was intact, and he might have lived for a while, but he was dead when the village men arrived, said his brother.
After the burial, many of the relatives left Zhawar, fearing more attacks. Dor, the village elder,
said the U.S. mili-tary has blocked the route back to their homes.
“We are pleading to be allowed back to our village. We are living out in the open, and the
American military says if we go back we will be bombed,” Dor said.
“We will give them a guarantee that we will not let any al Qaeda people live in our area,” he said. “There are no al Qaeda people there now. We want the Americans to stop the bombing and let us get back to our homes.”