AFGHANISTAN: Afghans protest against killing of two by U.S.-led troops

Scores of people protested in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday (December 31) over the killing of two civilians and the arrest of three by U.S.-led troops, officials and witnesses said. The governor of Nangarhar province, Gul Agha Sherzai, told reporters troops from a U.S.-led force killed the pair in a pre-dawn raid. Three people had been detained, he said. Sherzai said the raid had taken place without consultation with the Afghan authorities, adding: "At around one in the morning foreign troops raided a house based on intelligence that they had in order to arrest someone by the name of Mukhtar and another guy. When they (foreign troops) entered the house clashes started between the troops and the family." A relative of one of the dead men, gave his version of events, saying: "It was 12 o' clock at night that some one knocked on the door. We did not know who they were, and then they climbed on the wall and opened fire and killed my nephew." A spokesman for the U.S. military said he was not aware of any such incident. Civilian deaths are a sensitive matter for the Western-backed government and the foreign troops supporting it. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly urged foreign troops to do all they can to avoid civilian casualties while battling and hunting for militants. The protesters took to the streets of the provincial capital, Jalalabad, calling on the government stop foreign troops carrying out operations without the conset of Afghan authorities and village elders. The demonstration was peaceful. More than 40,000 foreign soldiers are in Afghanistan trying to defeat a Taliban-led insurgency and ensure enough security for development to get going. This year has been the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.

ITN Source | December 31, 2006

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