Press Release
NATO Airstrike Killings of Women and Children in Afghanistan Re-iterates the Urgent Need for the Re-establishment of the Khilafah State

On Thursday 14th February 2013, the BBC, CNN and other media outlets reported that NATO airstrikes killed 10 civilians, including 4 women and 5 children during a joint Afghan-NATO operation in the Shigal district of the northeastern Kunar province of Afghanistan. Last October, at least four children were killed in a U.S. missile attack on a residential area in Afghanistan's eastern province of Logar, and an airstrike by US forces in Helmand province killed three children. According to data released by the US Air Force last December, the US set a record of 447 strikes on Afghanistan in 2012 - more than in any other year in its 11 year brutal occupation of the country - killing countless women and children. A recent UN Committee on the Rights of Children report stated that hundreds of children are reported to have died, "as a result of attacks and air strikes by the US military forces in Afghanistan" between 2008 and 2012, due to the use of "indiscriminate force". Rather than acknowledging the fall-out of its merciless campaign of death and destruction on the Muslims of Afghanistan and Pakistan, NATO and the US rejected the UN report, choosing instead to continue to accept the slaughter of hundreds of women and children as acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of securing their economic and strategic interests in the region - in true capitalist colonial style.

In an attempt to strengthen their control of the resources of Afghan soil and the region, as well as force-feed liberal freedoms and democracy to Afghan Muslims, these occupying forces are indiscriminately killing every living being that comes in the way of achieving their goal. And out of all the crimes committed against the Muslims of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the greatest is the treachery of rulers like Karzai and Zardari, and army chiefs like Kayani, who are shamelessly providing every logistic and practical help to these killing machines, even using Muslim soldiers as hired killers to do their dirty work. They evidently see the deaths of hundreds of the honourable daughters and children of this Ummah as an irrelevant and insignificant matter in the path of licking the boots and gaining the pleasure of their Western masters.

We ask the sincere sons, officers and generals of the Afghanistan and Pakistan armies - till how long will you close your eyes to this murder of your sisters, brothers, and children when you know it is your duty to protect their blood, lives, and honor? How can you let this occupation, these atrocities, this bloodshed of your Ummah continue when you are the sons of the courageous general and defender of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Qasim who was sent under the Umayyad Caliph Al Waleed, upon the call of one Muslim woman to defend her life and honour from the Hindu Raja Dahir? We call you to move and fulfil your duty to defend the blood of your Ummah from their killers and liberate our Muslim lands from its brutal occupiers. We call you to break your allegiance to these cowardly rulers who have brought dishonour to your name by using you as pawns to secure the interests of foreign states. Give your support and allegiance to the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" that will return your status as one of liberators and heroes of the Ummah for it is the shield of the believers. The Khilafah "Caliphate" embodies the highest principles in all matters, including war, prohibiting the killing of innocent civilians or destruction of crops and land. The women and children of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the whole Muslim world are crying out for their guardian the Khilafah "Caliphate" and for their general Muhammad bin Qasim to defend their blood and honour. O sincere sons of the Muslim armies, will you not respond?"

(وَمَا لَكُمۡ لَا تُقَـٰتِلُونَ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱلۡمُسۡتَضۡعَفِينَ مِنَ ٱلرِّجَالِ وَٱلنِّسَآءِ وَٱلۡوِلۡدَٲنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَآ أَخۡرِجۡنَا مِنۡ هَـٰذِهِ ٱلۡقَرۡيَةِ ٱلظَّالِمِ أَهۡلُهَا وَٱجۡعَل لَّنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ وَلِيًّ۬ا وَٱجۡعَل لَّنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ نَصِيرًا)

"And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah, and for those weak, ill-treated and oppressed among men, women, and children, whose cry is, ‘Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from you one who will protect, and raise for us from You one who will help." [TMQ An-Nisa: 75]

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of the Central Media Office
of Hizb ut Tahrir