Karzai condemns US troops

Last Modified: 05 Mar 2007
By: Keme Nzerem

Afghan President attacks US troops for shooting dead 10 civilians at the weekend.

Nine more civilians, five women, three children and an old man, were killed in an overnight air strike by Western troops in Nijrab district of Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, the deputy provincial governor said on Monday.

The raid followed a rocket attack on a US base, Deputy Governor Sayed Dawood Hashimi said.

The US military said it had acted in self-defence. And as villagers returned from digging fresh graves - the blame game began.

As the Americans fled, they treated every car and person along the busy, tree-lined highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

"I saw them turning and firing in this direction, then turning and firing in that direction," Ahmed Najib, a 23-year-old hit by a bullet in his right shoulder, said of the US forces. "I even saw a farmer shot by the Americans."

"It's not entirely clear if the people were killed or wounded by coalition forces gunfire or enemy attackers' gunfire."
Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta

Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta, the top US military spokesman in Afghanistan, said gunmen may have fired on US forces at multiple points during the escape.

He said it was not yet clear how the casualties happened, though he left open the possibility that US forces had shot civilians. "It's not entirely clear right now if the people killed or wounded by gunfire were killed or wounded by coalition forces gunfire or enemy attackers' gunfire," he said.

The accusation that US forces killed or wounded so many Afghans was likely to cause an uproar in a country that has seen an untold number of civilians killed by international forces since the US-led invasion in 2001.

The Afghan President has pleaded repeatedly for Western troops to take care not to harm civilians, and in December wept during a speech lamenting civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces.