“It was about two in the morning when we heard the aircraft, and I woke up,” said Abdul Manaan. “I looked out but I couldn’t see anything. My two younger brothers who were in another room came to me to ask what was going on, but I told them, ‘Nothing, just go back to sleep’. They went back to bed, as did I.
“Then I heard a noise on the roof, and I looked out and there were armed men up there. They climbed down and came into my brothers’ room, and asked them if they were Taleban. One of my brothers said ‘No, we are shopkeepers, come and search the house. We have nothing, no guns or anything’. The soldiers shot him on the spot. My other brother they brought to me, and tied his hands. Then they slit his throat. I could hear him gurgling. He was still making a noise when they got to me.
“One of the soldiers spoke a little Pashto - he asked whether we were Taleban and I said no, we were shopkeepers. They made me stand up against the wall and tied my hands. They put the knife to my neck and cut me three times. Then they threw an old tarpaulin over me and left.
“But I wasn’t dead.”
As Abdul Manaan lay under the tarpaulin holding his hand to his neck wound, he heard the soldiers moving around the house and children screaming.
When the soldiers left after about half an hour, he said, “I got up and went to my brother. He was cold.”
He found the women and children alive in another room, together with some who had come from other houses. “Everyone was screaming and crying,” he said.
In the morning, Abdul Manaan was taken to hospital in Lashkar Gah.
“I survived, but my brothers are dead,” he said. “What shall I do now?”
Residents of Helmand province have grown used to aerial strikes over the past several months. As the Taleban and foreign forces battle for control of the province, civilians are often caught in the middle.
The international troops accuse the Taleban of using women and children as “human shields”, while the insurgents and increasingly also the Afghan government condemn the foreign forces for reckless disregard for human life.
But what reportedly happened in Toube was quite different from the more detached, if horrific, bombing that has destroyed homes and families.
Abdul Manaan’s story is echoed by dozens of villagers from Toube whom IWPR interviewed as they underwent treatment in Lashkar Gah or accompanied injured relatives there.
All spoke consistently of soldiers breaking down doors, shooting children and cutting throats. They agreed that the raid began at two in the morning with the sound of helicopters bringing in dozens of armed men, both Afghan and foreign.
