But why do they hate us Mommy?

Each time the old woman breathed out you could hear a small groan of pain as she sat, her head in one hand, her other shoulder shattered by shrapnel and fixed in a coarse plaster.

Her son Mohammad and his wife Khwara sat next to her - they were mourning the death of their 18-year-old son and her brother.

Both were among 57 killed - almost half of them women and children - when American forces bombed their village in Shindand, western Afghanistan, and destroyed 100 homes.

"The bombardments were going on day and night," said Mohammad Zarif Achakzai, who had to flee their mud house in the Zerkoh Valley.

"Those who tried to get out somewhere safe were being bombed. They didn't care if it was women, children or old men."

Khwara explained how it started: "Americans came to the village without consulting any elders," she said.

"They just came into to the women's part of the house, so we women went to the elders, and we told them if you don't stop this, we women will stand against them."

Remembering what happened she began to get angry: "Death to America," she shouted. "Death to the America that killed my son." Read more