{"id":5309,"date":"2010-01-04T22:36:02","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T07:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=5309"},"modified":"2010-01-04T22:36:02","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T07:06:02","slug":"afghan-president-karzai-demands-us-hand-over-gunmen-who-killed-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=5309","title":{"rendered":"Afghan President Karzai demands US hand over gunmen who killed children"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/world\/Afghanistan\/article6973001.ece<\/a><\/p>\n

From The Times<\/p>\n

January 1, 2010<\/p>\n

Hamid Karzai demands US hand over gunmen who killed children<\/h1>\n

President Karzai\u2019s security chiefs have demanded that America should hand over the gunmen behind a night raid in eastern Afghanistan that government investigators and the United Nations say killed at least eight schoolchildren.<\/p>\n

It was the Afghan Government\u2019s most aggressive response yet to an alleged attack on civilians. But the US insisted that its men had come under fire and that all the victims were part of an Afghan cell manufacturing bombs.<\/p>\n

The call heightens a war of words between the Afghan Government and its powerful military backers. It is the first time that Mr Karzai has tried to hold foreign forces directly accountable for killing civilians, although he has issued impassioned responses to civilian casualties that threaten to undermine Nato\u2019s mission in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

It also reflects the growing assertiveness of a Government that precariously held its position after fraudriddled elections in August and open criticism from Nato countries over corruption.<\/p>\n

Nato officials said that Mr Karzai met General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, to discuss the operation on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Kai Eide, the head of the UN in Afghanistan, issued a statement reinforcing Afghan claims that most of the dead were schoolboys. \u201cBased on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He accepted that there was evidence to suggest that insurgents were in the area, but reiterated concerns that night raids by US special forces risked undermining consent for foreign forces in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United Nations remains concerned about night-time raids given that they often result in lethal outcomes for civilians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The National Security Council, chaired by Mr Karzai, accepted the findings of an Afghan investigation that contradicted Nato\u2019s claims. It demanded: \u201cThose responsible for the deaths of those innocent youths must be handed over to the Afghan Government\u201d.<\/p>\n

Conventional US units told investigators that they had no knowledge of the operation, in Narang district in eastern Kunar province. Assadullah Wafa, who led the investigation, said that US troops flew to Kunar from Kabul late on Saturday. Nato sources said that the foreigners involved were non-military, suggesting that they were part of a secret paramilitary unit based in the capital.<\/p>\n

Mr Wafa said that they landed helicopters outside the village and walked in at the dead of night before shooting the children at close range. \u201cThey were children, they were civilians, they were innocent,\u201d he said. \u201cI condemn this attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Security Council endorsed his findings. \u201cInternational forces entered the area and killed ten youths, eight of them school students inside two rooms in a house, without encountering any armed resistance,\u201d a statement from Mr Karzai\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

A Western official was also scathing. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that there were insurgents there, and there may well have been an insurgent leader in the house, but that doesn\u2019t justify executing eight children who were all enrolled in local schools,\u201d he said. Rahman Jan Ehsas, the local headmaster, told The Times that seven of the students were handcuffed before they were shot. A local farm labourer and a shepherd boy were also killed, he said.<\/p>\n

The deaths sparked protests across Afghanistan, with students in Jalalabad burning an effigy of Barack Obama and children in Kabul as young as 10 demanding that foreign forces should quit Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Nato\u2019s International Security Assistance Force said there was \u201cno direct evidence to substantiate\u201d the Government\u2019s claims that unarmed civilians were harmed in the \u201cjoint coalition and Afghan security force\u201d operation. The National Security Council made no reference to any Afghan forces involved in the operation. In the past, Special Forces have been criticised for using private Afghan militias in operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/world\/Afghanistan\/article6973001.ece From The Times January 1, 2010 Hamid Karzai demands US hand over gunmen who killed children President Karzai\u2019s security chiefs have demanded that America should hand over the gunmen behind a night raid in eastern Afghanistan that government investigators and the United Nations say killed at least eight schoolchildren. It was the Afghan Government\u2019s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Afghan President Karzai demands US hand over gunmen who killed children”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5309"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5311,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions\/5311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}