News - World: In a remote, nondescript hamlet, tucked in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, a convoy of local residents, sporting traditional outfits and grooving to drum beats, was making its way to the groom’s village for grand wedding celebrations on July 6, 2008.

More than 50 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the incident, local sources told the Press TV website, even though the official death toll was 47.

Thursday, July 6, marks the 15th anniversary of the massacre, which human rights groups say represents the American legacy of terror and abuse in the country they militarily occupied for 20 years.

The ghastly massacre came less than seven years after then-US President George Bush famously declared on September 20, 2001, that the so-called US "war on terror" begins with Al-Qaeda "but does not end there."

The American plane dropped a series of cluster bombs on the wedding party, the first one targeting a group of children who were marching ahead of the main bridal procession, killing all of them, according to local residents. 

The children were excited and grooving to Attan, the war-ravaged country’s national dance, which is characterized by rhythmic moves.

It followed more devastating strikes, this time targeting the main wedding parade, with victims mostly women and little girls, a local resident, Hedayat Yousefzai, told the Press TV website.

The teenage bride and some of her friends, he said, were lucky to escape the initial onslaught but eventually fell as they frantically tried to scurry down the dusty and rough hill. Her joy turned out to be short-lived.

“The wedding marchers were merrily walking from one village to the other, as bride and groom lived in two neighboring villages, when the American jets pounced on them,” Yousefzai, a journalist and poet, said.

Of those killed in the attack, at least 39 were women and children, including the bride. They were all buried in the village cemetery, next to each other, as it was not possible to identify their remains.

Yousefzai, who has now moved to the provincial capital Jalalabad, vividly remembers the horrific tragedy that day in the Deh Bala district, which he said, “laid bare the real face and agenda of Americans.”

Following the tragic incident, then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai instituted a nine-member inquiry commission, comprising officials from the ministry of defense, intelligence agency, and lawmakers, which concluded that the victims were all civilians and had no links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Ten days after the tragedy, Karzai visited the site of the bombing in Nangarhar, braving insurgent threats, and denounced the US-led coalition forces and their reckless approach, Yousefzai told the Press TV website.

US officials in Afghanistan initially denied killing civilians in the airstrike but later admitted to the “mistake”.

It came only two days after a US aircraft targeted two vehicles in eastern Nuristan province, claiming that the vehicles were carrying insurgents. The 22 victims eventually turned out to be civilians, including a woman and a child.

Source: Press TV