US soldier kills 16 in Afghanistan
Source: Agencies |
March 12, 2012, Monday
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Print Edition
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A US soldier killed 16 Afghan people, including nine children and three women, in a shooting spree yesterday that Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned as "an assassination."
NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a US serviceman had been detained at a NATO base as the alleged shooter.
Karzai demanded an explanation from the United States, adding new tensions to a relationship already severely strained over the burning of Muslim holy books at a US base in Afghanistan.
The burnings sparked violent protests and attacks that left some 30 people dead. Six US personnel have been killed in attacks by Afghan colleagues since the Quran burnings came to light, but the violence has just started to calm down.
"This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven," Karzai said in a statement. He said he had repeatedly demanded the US stop killing Afghan civilians.
Five people were wounded in the pre-dawn attack in Kandahar province, including a 15-year-old boy named Rafiullah who was shot in the leg and spoke to the president over the telephone. He described how the American soldier entered his house in the middle of the night, woke his family and began shooting them.
A photographer saw 15 bodies between the two villages caught up in the shooting. Some bodies had been burned, while others were covered with blankets.
A young boy partially wrapped in a blanket was in the back of a minibus, dried blood crusted on his face and in his ear.
His loose-fitting brown pants were partly burned, revealing a leg charred by fire.
Villagers packed inside the minibus looked on with concern as a woman spoke to reporters. She pulled back a blanket to reveal the body of a smaller child wearing what appeared to be red pajamas. A third dead child lay amid a pile of green blankets in the bed of a truck.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said US President Barack Obama had been briefed on the incident.
The attack took place in two villages in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar. The villages of Balandi and Alkozai are about 500 meters from a US base.
The shooting started around 3am, said Asadullah Khalid, government representative for southern Afghanistan and member of a delegation investigating the incident.
Abdul Baqi, an Alkozai resident, said that the American went into three different houses and opened fire.
"When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again," Baqi said.
The shooting "is a fatal hammer blow on the US military mission in Afghanistan. Whatever sliver of trust and credibility we might have had following the burnings of the Quran is now gone," said David Cortright, the director of policy studies at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
"This may have been the act of a lone, deranged soldier. But the people of Afghanistan will see it for what it was, a wanton massacre of innocent civilians," Cortright said.
NATO spokesman Justin Brockhoff said a US serviceman had been detained at a NATO base as the alleged shooter.
Karzai demanded an explanation from the United States, adding new tensions to a relationship already severely strained over the burning of Muslim holy books at a US base in Afghanistan.
The burnings sparked violent protests and attacks that left some 30 people dead. Six US personnel have been killed in attacks by Afghan colleagues since the Quran burnings came to light, but the violence has just started to calm down.
"This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven," Karzai said in a statement. He said he had repeatedly demanded the US stop killing Afghan civilians.
Five people were wounded in the pre-dawn attack in Kandahar province, including a 15-year-old boy named Rafiullah who was shot in the leg and spoke to the president over the telephone. He described how the American soldier entered his house in the middle of the night, woke his family and began shooting them.
A photographer saw 15 bodies between the two villages caught up in the shooting. Some bodies had been burned, while others were covered with blankets.
A young boy partially wrapped in a blanket was in the back of a minibus, dried blood crusted on his face and in his ear.
His loose-fitting brown pants were partly burned, revealing a leg charred by fire.
Villagers packed inside the minibus looked on with concern as a woman spoke to reporters. She pulled back a blanket to reveal the body of a smaller child wearing what appeared to be red pajamas. A third dead child lay amid a pile of green blankets in the bed of a truck.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said US President Barack Obama had been briefed on the incident.
The attack took place in two villages in the Panjwai district of southern Kandahar. The villages of Balandi and Alkozai are about 500 meters from a US base.
The shooting started around 3am, said Asadullah Khalid, government representative for southern Afghanistan and member of a delegation investigating the incident.
Abdul Baqi, an Alkozai resident, said that the American went into three different houses and opened fire.
"When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses. I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again," Baqi said.
The shooting "is a fatal hammer blow on the US military mission in Afghanistan. Whatever sliver of trust and credibility we might have had following the burnings of the Quran is now gone," said David Cortright, the director of policy studies at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
"This may have been the act of a lone, deranged soldier. But the people of Afghanistan will see it for what it was, a wanton massacre of innocent civilians," Cortright said.
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