U.S. soldier's civilian massacre 'cannot be forgiven,' Afghan President says

In the dark of night, a U.S. soldier left his base in southern Afghanistan?s Kandahar province, walked a short distance to two villages, entered the homes of Afghan civilians and opened fire killing 16 people, including nine children.

The rampage, in the province long patrolled by Canadian troops, is rocking the strained relationship between Western forces and their Afghan hosts, already raw since the burning of Muslim holy books on a base last month sparked weeks of protests that left 30 dead.

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Reports from the rural area where the murders took place described them as methodical, with the American Army staff sergeant trying door after door and finally entering three homes. He reportedly set fire to the first, after killing 11 members of the same family, including four girls younger than six.

?This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven,? Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement on Sunday, as news of the killings spread along with graphic pictures of the dead. Mr. Karzai also repeated his complaint that the U.S.-led NATO forces in his country for the last 10 years conduct operations that sometimes kill Afghan civilians.

Condolences and pledges of investigations poured from U.S. President Barack Obama, NATO military commanders and political leaders among allies, including Canada?s Defence Minister, Peter Mackay.

But they were clearly holding their breath for the answer to another question: Will Afghans, living for years with a vast Western military presence, accept that responsibility lies with a lone rogue soldier?

The killings took place in a district familiar to Canadian troops: in villages in Panjwaii district, the rural heartland of the Taliban in Kandahar province, where the Canadian Forces patrolled from 2006 to 2011, fighting a hide-and-seek war with insurgents.

It?s is now the scene of a new tragedy, one threatening to set alight new tensions at a particularly delicate moment in relations between Afghanistan and the foreign troops and aid workers who came to fight the Taliban.

In Canada, Mr. Mackay issued a statement in which he called the attack a ?cowardly act? and said the shooting ?runs contrary to everything that the international mission to Afghanistan aims to accomplish.?

U.S. officials worked to limit the damage, stressing the killings will be investigated and punished. Mr. Obama, who phoned Mr. Karzai to offer condolences, issued a statement calling the attack ?tragic and shocking? and not representative of the U.S. military. He vowed to ?get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible.?

But it?s not clear if those pledges of justice will ally Afghan outrage, already fuelled by Taliban claims of a NATO-backed massacre, photographs of dead bodies posted on social media sites, and confusion about how such an attack could happen.

The New York Times reported that a senior American military official confirmed that the sergeant was attached to a unit based at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Wash., and that he had been part of what is called a village stabilization operation in Afghanistan, in which teams of Green Berets, supported by other soldiers, try to develop close ties with village elders, organize local police units and track down Taliban leaders. The official said the sergeant was not a Green Beret himself, and had been deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan at least once before his current tour of duty.

Many Afghans were already questioning whether the killings were really the work of one soldier, just as they questioned the explanation from NATO commanders earlier this month that the burning of Korans at the Bagram airbase was inadvertent. Six U.S. service members have been killed by their Afghan colleagues since the burnings came to light, and the violence had just started to calm down.

Even among senior Afghan officials, explanations that a lone soldier went rogue left pointed questions, according to an Afghan reporter for the BBC, Bilal Sarwary.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGlobeAndMail-International/~3/To-nD_Fg3lE/

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