People chant anti-American slogans and burn an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama in Jalalabad, south Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009., during a protest against the recent killings of 10 civilians allegedly by the coalition forces in Kunar province, eight of them boys aged between 12 and 14. A NATO official said initial reports from troops involved in the fighting on Sunday indicated that the victims were insurgents. But they were children.

Afghan civilians ’shot dead’ by foreign forces

By Sardar Ahmad (AFP) – Wednesday December 30th, 2009

KABUL — Afghan government investigators on Wednesday accused foreign troops of dragging 10 people, including eight children, from their homes and shooting them dead.

Anti-US protests erupted in at least two cities over the alleged killings as President Hamid Karzai’s office published its report, likely to enflame tensions between the Afghan government and its Western military backers.

The presidential investigating team said the dead included eight children, between 13 and 17 years old, said a statement from Karzai’s office.

The alleged incident took place late Saturday in the eastern province of Kunar, where Taliban activity is high as the militants are believed to cross into Afghanistan across the porous border with Pakistan.

International forces based in Kunar and local police told Asadullah Wafa, head of the investigating team and a former governor of Kunar province, that “they were unaware of the incident,” Wafa told AFP.

“A unit of international forces descended from a plane in the Narang district of Kunar province and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” the statement said, quoting Wafa.

Wafa was shown documents by the principal of the school that the students attended, proving their status, the statement added.

Karzai had spoken to the father and uncles of the students, offering his condolences, and promised a full investigation.

“The president assured them that the government will seriously investigate the incident and deal with the culprits in accordance with the law,” the statement said.

Hundreds of university students blocked main roads in Jalalabad, capital of eastern Nangahar province, on Wednesday to protest the alleged deaths.

The protesters torched a US flag and an effigy of US President Barack Obama in a public square, after chanting “death to Obama” and “death to foreign forces”, witnesses said.

“Our demonstration is against those foreigners who have come to our country,” said Safiullah Aminzai, a student organiser.

“They have not brought democracy to Afghanistan but they are killing our religious scholars and children.”

Protesters in downtown Kabul tied green ribbons around their foreheads on which was written in red “stop killing us,” witnesses said.

Others chanted “foreigners out” and “death to the murderers of Afghan people”.

Civilian deaths in the eight-year war to eradicate a Taliban-led insurgency are a sensitive issue for the Afghan public, and fan tensions between Karzai and the 113,000 foreign troops.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which has 113,000 troops in Afghanistan, said it had no activities in the area at the time the alleged incident took place.

A senior Western military official said US Special Forces have been conducting operations in the area, separately from ISAF.

The United Nations released figures this week showing that civilian deaths rose 10.8 percent in the first 10 months of 2009 to 2,038, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008.