Word: benafsha
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...wedding party in the neighboring province of Herat. Packed into a white Toyota Corolla wagon, they neared the outskirts of the city of Herat when, according to a report compiled by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the vehicle was fired on by an Italian patrol convoy. Benafsha was seated in the middle of the backseat wearing a red dress, her relatives say. She was shot in the face and died instantly. Her mother was wounded in the chest. (See pictures of U.S. troops operating in Afghanistan's deadly Korengal Valley...
Italian security forces based in Herat province said the vehicle was repeatedly warned to stop before it was fired on. Benafsha's uncle, Ahmad Wali, who was driving, says traffic was moving in both directions but that rain made visibility poor. Suddenly, he recalls, sparks flew in front as armored vehicles came into view. Glass was sprayed into his face...
...Benafsha's death yielded just a few paragraphs in the day's wire reports, lost in the stream of bigger names and numbers. She was wrapped in a blanket inside a particle-board coffin and loaded into the trunk of the Toyota where her brother sat next to her remains for the long drive back. Within hours, another deadly U.S. air strike in Farah's Bala Boluk district would kill scores of civilians and reverberate from Kabul to Washington. Criticized around the world and beset by demonstrations in Afghanistan, the U.S. military continues to dispute the high death-toll estimates...
...aftermath of Benafsha's death, investigators from the Afghan rights commission said the presiding Italian commander contacted them to inquire how compensation could be made. Past settlements have averaged about $2,000, distributed through the Afghan government. In a rare gesture, the commander himself later traveled by helicopter to Benafsha's village in Farah where they say he offered her family several thousand dollars. The family refused to accept the money up front. But when it was agreed the funds would go toward building a school in Benafsha's honor, they relented...
Contacted by phone, Aref Shaheem, Benafsha's father, angrily said that coalition forces were "only killing people." They claim to be in the country to protect Afghans, he says, but they continue to take innocent lives. "They can't be trusted." As a result, he argues, the Taliban in his area only grows stronger. He says it was little consolation to learn the soldiers responsible for his daughter's death were punished, as investigators say they were told. (The coalition would not confirm this.) She is gone, he says, and so is any vestige of faith he had left...