May 18, 2009 11:17 AM

B-1 Bomber Involved in Deadly Airstrike (Updated)

The L.A. Times has fresh details on the massive firefight which killed dozens of civilians in western Afghanistan earlier this month. On the night of May 4, the girls’ families, frightened by hours of fierce fighting between insurgents and Afghan and Western troops in and around Garani, had sought shelter, together with dozens of neighbors, […]

The *L.A. Times *has fresh details on the massive firefight which killed dozens of civilians in western Afghanistan earlier this month.

On the night of May 4, the girls' families, frightened by hours of fierce fighting between insurgents and Afghan and Western troops in and around Garani, had sought shelter, together with dozens of neighbors, in a pair of sprawling compounds belonging to the village's most powerful tribal clans. After the clashes subsided in the early evening, residents said, many were bedding down by about 8:30, still huddled together in hope of safety.
That, they say, is when the bombs fell...
The aircraft summoned to Garani, two F-18 fighter jets and a B-1 bomber that U.S. officials said were based outside Afghanistan, took aim at three targets. In strikes that came about 20 minutes apart, three village landmarks, the mosque and two large compounds, were hit, residents said.

The presence of those planes indicates there was some initial coordination of the air effort, at least, from the Air Force's Combined Air & Space Operations Center. (But it was the guys on the ground who ultimately ordered the strikes.) It also means that precision weapons -- most likely, satellite-guided bombs -- were responsible for at least some of the civilian deaths. In some earlier incidents -- like the strike on Azizabad last year, which also killed dozens of innocents -- U.S. forces relied on a AC-130 gunship, firing unguided howitzer and gatling gun rounds.

But we won't know the full story of what happened in Garani for weeks. If we ever find out at all.

The U.S. military said its inquiry, a forensic-style examination of everything from flight logs to radio transmissions from the field, could take weeks more... The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only independent outside group to have reached the village, has not yet released its findings. A United Nations delegation was unable to secure a military escort to the scene last week because travel was deemed too dangerous.

UPDATE: More details are trickling in. "U.S. warplanes carried out a wave of attacks in support of Afghan and American ground forces in and around the village of Garani over a six-hour period in the late afternoon and evening, said Army Col. Gregory Julian, chief spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The firepower included two 2,000-pound bombs dropped by a B-1 bomber. Other bombs dropped in eight runs between 3 and 9 p.m. included 500-pound GBU-12s and GBU-38s."

A pair of one-ton bombs in a single village -- plus eight more runs of 500-pound bombs? That is a* lot *of firepower.

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