Kuwait Times

Published Date: June 13, 2007

KABUL: Afghan police mistook US troops on a nighttime mission for Taleban fighters and opened fire on them, prompting US forces to return fire and call in attack aircraft, killing seven Afghan police, officials said yesterday. Gunmen on motorbikes, meanwhile, killed two schoolgirls yesterday in central Afghanistan, as US-led coalition and Afghan troops killed more than 24 suspected Taleban fighters during a battle in the south on Monday, officials said.
President Hamid Karzai's spokesman labeled the deaths of the Afghan police at a remote checkpoint in the eastern province of Nangarhar on Monday "a tragic incident" caused by a lack of communication.

"The police forces were not aware of the coalition's operation," said spokesman Karim Rahimi. "The police checkpoint in the area thought that they were the enemy, so police opened fire on the coalition, and then the coalition thought that the enemies were firing on them, so they returned fire back." The commander at the post, Esanullah, who goes by one name, said US gunfire and helicopter rockets killed seven policemen and wounded four. Maj Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, said a combined coalition-Afghan force was ambushed by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from two sides while on the way to conduct an operation against a suspected Taleban safe house.  "Afghan and coalition forces took incoming fire and they responded to it," Belcher said. The forces called in air support, he said.

A policeman at the remote checkpoint said police called out for the approaching US forces to halt.  "I thought they were Taleban, and we shouted at them to stop, but they came closer and they opened fire," said Khan Mohammad, one of the policemen at the post. "I'm very angry. We are here to protect the Afghan government and help serve the Afghan government, but the Americans have come to kill us." Rahimi said the incident showed why Karzai has repeatedly called for increased cooperation and communication between Afghan and international troops.

He said an investigation into the incident had been opened. The killing of civilians by international troops has been an ongoing problem in Afghanistan, and authorities have pleaded with international forces to work closely with their Afghan counterparts to prevent civilian casualties.  In Nangarhar province in March- the same province of yesterday's police shootings- 19 civilians were killed and 50 wounded by US Marines Special Operations Forces who fired on civilians while speeding away from the site of a suicide bomb attack, casualties that sparked angry protests and denunciations of the US presence there.  The International Committee of the Red Cross yesterday said the impact of violence on civilians in Afghanistan is worse now than it was a year ago.

Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations, said fighting between armed opposition groups and the Afghan army supported by international forces had intensified significantly in the south and east of the country since 2006 and was spreading to the north and west.  "Civilians suffer horribly from mounting threats to their security, such as increasing numbers of roadside bombs and suicide attacks, and regular aerial bombing raids," he said in a statement.

In central Logar province, gunmen on two motorbikes opened fire on a group of students leaving an all-girls school, leaving two schoolgirls dead and six others wounded, said Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar.  "I strongly condemn this terrorist act," Atmar said. "This attack shows their cowardice, since they cannot attack our security forces."

In the southern province of Kandahar, US-led coalition and Afghan troops killed more than 24 suspected Taleban fighters during an eight-hour battle in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said yesterday.  The troops were initially ambushed by militants in Shah Wali Kot in Kandahar province Monday, but retreated after several of their fighters were killed. A force of some 30 Taleban later attacked the same coalition convoy, and Western forces called in airstrikes on a compound and a vehicle, killing "over two dozen enemy fighters," the coalition said.

On Monday, four Afghan civilians were killed and one wounded in the eastern Kunar province after a car drove through a NATO checkpoint and soldiers opened fire on it, said NATO's International Security Assistance Force.  A roadside bomb attack 40 kilometers north of Kandahar city on Monday killed a Canadian soldier. The death brings to at least 78 the number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, including at least 39 Americans.  Violence has spiked in Afghanistan in recent weeks.

More than 2,300 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on US, NATO and Afghan figures. In Paktika province a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle in Gomal district on Monday, killing one policeman, said Ghamai Khan, the governor's spokesman. Police later saw a Taleban militant planting another roadside bomb and killed him. In the eastern province of Paktia, Afghan police and US-led coalition troops acting on a tip discovered rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and bomb-making materials hidden under two animal pens in an Afghan home. - AP