American victims reach out to Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Coming together in common grief, a group of Americans who lost relatives in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on Wednesday visited three Afghans whose mother was killed in an errant U.S. airstrike.

The four Americans said they hoped to draw attention to those who suffered from the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

The group met with Mohammad Rahaf, 26, his brother Aziz Ullah, 13, and sister Sabera, 9, who have been relying on friends and neighbors for food and shelter since American bombs accidentally destroyed their home in the Qala-e-Zaman Khan district of Kabul.

Killed along with their mother were their grandmother, a brother, a sister and a brother-in-law.

Derrill Bodley, a 56-year-old music professor from Stockton, Calif., told the three of his own loss -- the death of his 20-year-old daughter Deora, who was aboard United Airlines Flight 93. It crashed in a Pennsylvania field, apparently after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Bodley told how the Afghan siblings had lost their father two years ago and had fled northern Afghanistan, where the fight against the Taliban had been going on for years.