Talk about collateral damage, 11 children and a woman killed in NATO airstrike against Taliban commanders

[Civilians continue to die from wanton aggression of NATO forces and yet we wonder why the Afghan population is against us...]

file photo; credit: huffingtonpost

• Local officials said the strike hit houses in the Kunar province, Afghanistan
• Said the woman and children died when their homes collapsed on them
• Six insurgents, including two senior Taliban leaders, died in the strike
• International Security Assistance Force said it is assessing incident

By DAILY MAIL
April 7, 2013

A Nato airstrike killed at least 11 children yesterday during an operation targeting Taliban commanders. At least one woman also died in the strike and more than six others were injured in the strike on a village in Shigal district in Kunar province, on the Pakistani border. Six insurgents, including two senior Taliban leaders, were killed in the attack, the Interior Ministry said.

The Interior Ministry did not mention any civilian casualties but Wasefullah Wasefi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said civilian homes had been hit during an air attack.
'Eleven children and a woman were killed when an air strike hit their houses,' Wasefi said.
Mohammad Zahir Safai, the Shigal district chief, said the woman and the children were killed when the houses collapsed on them.

A spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said they were aware of reports of civilian casualties and were assessing the incident. He said: 'No Isaf personnel were involved on the ground, but Isaf provided fire support from the air, killing several insurgents.

'We are also aware of reports of several civilians injured from the engagement, but no reports of civilian deaths. Isaf takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously, and we are currently assessing the incident. 'The air support was called in by coalition forces - not Afghans - and was used to engage insurgent forces in areas away from structures, according to our reporting.'

Tribal elder Haji Malika Jan told the BBC that fighting began early on Saturday and lasted for at least seven hours.

A Reuters journalist said they saw the bodies of 11 children when they were taken to Safai's office in protest by their families and other villagers on Sunday. The journalist did not see the body of a women and Safai said residents told him of the death. Women's bodies are not displayed, according to custom.

Wasefi also said an American civilian adviser to the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, had also been killed in the operation. He said it had lasted several hours. The Ministry of Interior said the two dead Taliban commanders, Ali Khan and Gul Raouf, planned and organised attacks in Kunar.

Civilian deaths have been a long-running source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who banned Afghan troops from calling for air strikes. About ten women and children were killed in February last year in a Nato air strike in the same area of Afghanistan.

The deaths came on the same day that a car bomb killed five Americans, including three U.S. soldiers, a young diplomat and a U.S. Defence Department contractor, in the southern province of Zabul.

The Kandahar Massacre: Anatomy of a Massacre (Dateline SBS Austrailia) EXCLUSIVE insight, hear the truth from the survivors

Anatomy of a Massacre
Dateline SBS Australia
Information Clearing House

What really happened on the night of March 11 when 17 Afghan civilians were massacred in Kandahar province?

Many Afghans, including some of the survivors that night, believe more than one U.S. soldier was present in the two villages where the killings took place.

With unprecedented access to Afghan military investigators, Yalda Hakim travels to the villages where the massacre took place and interviews survivors of the attack, as well as Afghan guards at the US military base that housed the alleged gunman.

US soldier Robert Bales is in custody, facing charges of mass murder, but Afghan investigators suspect there may have been at least one other killer involved.

INTERVIEW WITH YALDA - Yalda Hakim explains to SBS Radio's World News Australia how she was able to get such unprecedented access to the massacre investigation.

Posted March 30, 2012


http://youtu.be/gnueG4I7Q9g

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The U.S. pays $50,000/person for Kandahar Massacre victims...at least its a significant boost from the $2,000 they usually pay

Afghans: US paid $50,000 per shooting spree death
AP News
By MIRWAIS KHAN
Mar 25, 7:17 AM (ET)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday.

The families of the dead received the money Saturday at the governor's office, said Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai. Each wounded person received $11,000, Lalai said. Community elder Jan Agha confirmed the same figures.

They were told that the money came from U.S. President Barack Obama, Lalai said.
A U.S. official confirmed that compensation had been paid but declined to discuss exact amounts, saying only that it reflected the devastating nature of the incident. The official spoke anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the subject.

A spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces declined to confirm or deny the payments, saying that while coalition members often make compensation payments, they are usually kept private.
"As the settlement of claims is in most cases a sensitive topic for those who have suffered loss, it is usually a matter of agreement that the terms of the settlement remain confidential," Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings said.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of sneaking out of his base before dawn on March 11 then creeping into houses in two nearby villages and opening fire on sleeping families within.
It was not immediately clear how much money had been paid out in all. Afghan officials and villagers have counted 16 dead - 12 in the village of Balandi and four in neighboring Alkozai - and six wounded. The U.S. military has charged Bales with 17 murders without explaining the discrepancy.

The 38-year-old soldier is accused of using his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, to kill four men, four women, two boys and seven girls, then burning some of the bodies. The ages of the children were not disclosed in the charge sheet.

The families had previously received smaller compensation payments from Afghan officials - $2,000 for each death and $1,000 for each person wounded.

Families of the dead declined to comment on any payments by U.S. officials on Sunday, but some of them said the previous day that they were less concerned with monetary payments than with seeing the perpetrator punished.

On Saturday, a bomb exploded in the south of the country as a foot patrol of Afghan and NATO forces was passing by the previous day, killing nine Afghans and one international service member, officials said.

The group was patrolling through Arghandab district in Kandahar province late Saturday when it was caught in the blast, said Shah Mohammad, the district administrator. Arghandab is a farming region just outside Kandahar city that has long been a bed-down area for Taliban insurgents. It was one of a number of communities around Kandahar city that were targeted in a 2010 sweep to oust the insurgency from the area.

The Afghan dead included one soldier, three police officers, four members of the Afghan "local police" - a government-sponsored militia force - and one translator, Mohammad said.

NATO reported earlier Sunday that one of its service members was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Saturday but did not provide additional details. It was not clear if this referred to the same incident, as NATO usually waits for individual coalition nations to confirm the details of deaths of their troops.

Is Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales a fall guy for the Kandahar Massacre? There certainly is more to the story than meets the eye

Massacre Cover-Up: The Beginning of the End for the US in Afghanistan?

Patrick Henningsen
Infowars.com
March 23, 2012

We are told that the US military have their man.

US military courts handed down their judgment to Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales - 17 counts of murder for the massacre of innocent Afghans. Bales, 38, will be formally charged today. Another lone gunman charged, and we are told that this horror story is meant to end there, with ‘closure’ for all sides.

The said slaughter of defenseless Afghan civilians was the worst of its kind since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began in 2001. It comes just weeks after copies of the Koran were burned at a US military base, an event which set off mass riots across the country.

Sgt. Bales could be a fall guy for this incident, and clearly he possesses a suitable back story necessary to pin the entire incident on one man – uses antidepressant pharmaceuticals as well as a chequered ‘stressful’ financial history – all of which paints the picture of ‘a soldier on the edge’, snapping in the line of duty. A nice clean, open and shut case.

Predictably, and asking no questions, the US mainstream corporate media has marched to the beat of the US military press department, relying solely on military reporting of the incident and dutifully ignoring multiple other reports coming out of Afghanistan, reports which point to a very different conclusion.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has gone on record, slamming the US military of not cooperating with a team he appointed to investigate the killings. Considering Karzai serves as President at the pleasure of Washington and its NATO allies, his remarks on this matter make it all the more compelling.

The reality outside of the US military’s press office points towards something completely different – a revenge attack involving a conspiracy numbering at least 10 US soldiers who left the US base in Panjwai district of Kandahar province, gunning down nine children, four men and three women on the morning of March 11 in the villages of Balandi and Alkozai. AP reports confirmed as much yesterday:

     In accounts to The Associated Press and to Afghan government officials, the residents 
     allege that US troops lined up men from the village of Mokhoyan(in Afghanistan) against 
     a wall after the bombing on either March 7 or 8, and told them they would pay a price for 
     the attack.

The appeal of the lone gunman theory has always been popular with Americans and the US media, and in this case, the rest of the world are meant to swallow an implausible story that a single US soldier single-handedly walked off the base, visiting not one, but two villages, carrying out his solo slaughter going home to home, and then proceeded to set fire to some of the victims’ bodies.

The awkward, official US military account of events only furthers speculation of a cover-up on the part of the US military, a cover-up which is now being steered by a White House who quite understandably – but not excusably – is at pains to come clean on yet another military scandal with a public suffering from conflict fatigue...

(click here to read the full article)

Afghan villagers in Kandahar were told 'they would pay' before massacre occurred killing 16

Afghan villagers told they would pay for bomb days ahead of massacre of 16
The Australian/AP
AP March 21, 2012 8:48AM

Panjwai district tribal elder Ghulam Rasool is convinced that the  

killing of 16 villagers in Afghanistan were an act of revenge 

for a roadside bomb attack on American forces in the same 

area a few days before. Source: AP 

RESIDENTS of an Afghan village near where an American soldier is alleged to have killed 16 civilians are convinced that the slayings were in retaliation for a roadside bomb attack on US forces in the same area a few days earlier.

In accounts to The Associated Press and to Afghan government officials, the residents allege that US troops lined up men from the village of Mokhoyan against a wall after the bombing on either March 7 or 8, and told them they would pay a price for the attack.

The lawyer for Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who is accused in the March 11 killings of the 16 civilians, has said that his client was upset because a buddy had lost a leg in an explosion on March 9.

It's unclear if the bombing cited by lawyer John Henry Browne was the same as the one described by the villagers that prompted the alleged threats. After a meeting at a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Mr Browne said Sgt Bales told him a roadside bomb blew off the leg of one of his friends two days before the shootings occurred.

A spokesman for the US military declined to give any information on the bombing or even confirm that it occurred, citing the investigation of the shootings. He also declined to comment on the allegation that US troops threatened retaliation.

...Mr Karzai's investigative team is not convinced that one soldier could have single-handedly left his base, walked to the two villages, and carried out the killings and set fire to some of the victims' bodies. The US military has said that even though its investigation is continuing, everything currently points to one shooter...

(click here to read the full article)

Read "The Kandahar Massacre" by MA Niazi, The Nation

The Kandahar Massacre

The Kandahar massacre

By: M A Niazi
The Nation
March 16, 2012

Pakistanis were not very surprised when an American soldier ran amuck in Kandahar and shot up 16 Afghan civilians, which came hot on the heels of another incident of American callousness in Afghanistan, i.e. the burning of copies of Holy Quran at the Bagram Airbase. Just as Pakistan had experienced the Raymond Davis affair, in which a CIA contractor had shot two Pakistanis, with his rescue vehicle running down a third, and had thus learned the hard way that CIA contractors were not benign presences who could be given the free run of the country, so have the Afghans learnt at the cost of massacre in Kandahar and the cost of being occupied by the USA. The common aspect of both incidents is that Washington’s dirty little secret is out!

If Europe sent its ‘remittance men’ out to the colonies, the USA is sending out those murderous offenders who, if kept in the country, would soon spray either the children at a school, or colleagues at a workplace, with bullets. It is an unfortunate truth that in a culture that glorifies violence, the armed forces attract the very kind of persons prone to such sudden outbursts. They are not many, and military discipline normally controls them, but under the sort of pressure that Afghanistan is providing for the US army or Pakistan for CIA contractors, such incidents are bound to happen.

One major source of pressure is that the USA is facing is that of defeat. Obviously, the agencies present in the theatre will have personnel, whose careers will thus be negatively impacted. Now CIA contractors and enlisted army personnel would seem to be out of this pressure, but they would be under the supervision of career-track officers who would exert their own kind of pressures, themselves feeling the pressure that is generated by impending defeat.
The Nato forces would contain similar misfits, liable to go off the rails, as has been shown by the desecration of opponents’ bodies and the subsequent photographing. As the Americans have been successful, and as they share a common origin with the USA, European armies, too, have accepted in their ranks those who are not very stable.

Another factor is that the military is not like civilian life, where murderous tendencies are severely suppressed, even on the penalty of loss of life. The military trains people to kill, and going into combat means killing others. For Muslims, this constitutes a religious duty, but for Europeans, either there must be continuous reinforcement of the lesson (that killing is ‘OK’), or the barriers must already be weak. There is none of the holy war feeling in European armies, which must rely instead on professionalism, and group feeling, to make people kill others. Of course, something may go wrong, and some soldiers, or one or the other, may lose the inhibitions too much, enough to run amuck.

There is an inherent problem with American culture that is avowedly civilian, and that also glorifies the gun culture, which is guaranteed by the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms. A recurring American theme is that of the heavily-armed vigilante, who shoots up the ‘bad guys’, suitably dehumanised by being given comic-book names, from the ‘injun’, the native American, brutally massacred during the Indian wars of the 19th century, to the ‘jerry’, ‘jap’, ‘chink’ and ‘gook’ (Germans, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese, the latter two from the Korean and Vietnam wars) of the 20th century.

This makes sense not just of the My Lai massacres, in which American troops slaughtered Vietnamese villagers, but of the massacres in Iraq that also learnt the cost of being occupied by the USA, as well as of the non-US, Nato massacres in Afghanistan, carried out by forces under American influence, even before the close contact produced by joint operations together. There were two massacres by US forces in Haditha during the occupation. The first was in 2005, in which US marines killed 24 and then Blackwater military contractors killed 17 people in 2007. Almost as if in a rehearsal for Salalah, an Apache helicopter crew killed 12 in Baghdad in the same year. These killings, My Lai, Haditha, Kandahar, all took place under occupation, and indicate the nature of American occupation: It is not just neo-colonial, but it is staffed by violent people.

The first sergeant, who committed the Kandahar massacre, has been identified as providing support for a Green Beret or SEAL unit of the Special Operations Command. Special operations have a tendency to be more attractive for the more physical of those with disturbances, as such units are not only more challenging, but they also provide the best opportunities of violence. The USA, which has the best documented evidence of problems with its elite forces, plans to enhance their role. Thus, Pakistan has a virtual guarantee of further trouble if it continues its alliance. Though not under physical occupation, its closeness to the main theatre of operations, combined with its close alliance with the USA, has meant frequent comparisons have been drawn with Cambodia, but one effect that Pakistan has experienced has been that of undergoing periodic massacres. Because this does not affect the ruling class, there is a desire to cosy up to the USA nonetheless. However, there will be more such massacres, because the American personnel coming here are products of their culture.
There have been protests in Afghanistan against both the Quran burnings and the Kandahar killings, and the killings are just more proof that the American occupation is a burden. There have been three consequences:

First, these incidents are making it more difficult for the USA to get the kind of Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) from Afghanistan that they want. The SOFA is going to govern the role of US forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014, when it is scheduled to leave. Interestingly, the USA would like to use more of the Special Forces that the murderous soldier belongs to, in that SOFA.

Second, the incident has caused voices to be raised in the USA for an earlier withdrawal of troops. Thus, indicating that anti-war sentiment is so high that any bad news, even if it is, as in this case, not a military reverse, will serve as an excuse to pack up and get out.
Third, it is an election year, and such incidents are not going to increase the re-election chances of President Barack Obama.

The main thing for Pakistan is to notice that such incidents have parallels to what the USA has done in the country. While Islamabad is heading to a reset of relations with Washington, which implies that the Nato land route for supplies through Pakistan is to be restored, there is nothing to stop the USA from being its usual, gung-ho, cowboyish self, and incidentally killing Pakistanis. There should be no dealing with the USA. That has cost both Afghanistan and Pakistan dearly.

The writer is a veteran journalist and founding member as well as Executive Editor of TheNation.

Email: maniazi@nation.com.pk

COVER-UP: Afghan probe Finds Up to 20 US troops behind Kandahar bloodbath

RT News
Published: 16 March, 2012, 11:33
Edited: 17 March, 2012, 03:42

An Afghan parliamentary investigation team has implicated up to 20 US troops in the massacre of 16 civilians in Kandahar early on Sunday morning. It contradicts NATO's account that insists one rogue soldier was behind the slaughter.

U.S. armoured vehicles are parked outside a US base 
in Panjwai district Kandahar province, 

March 11, 2012 (Reuters / Ahmad Nadeem) 

The team of Afghan lawmakers has spent two days collating reports from witnesses, survivors and inhabitants of the villages where the tragedy took place.

“We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within one hour at the same time, and the 16 civilians, most of them children and women, have been killed by the two groups,” investigator Hamizai Lali told Afghan News.

Lali also said their investigations led them to believe 15 to 20 US soldiers had been involved in the killings. He appealed to the international community to ensure that the responsible parties were brought to justice, stressing the Afghan parliament would not rest until the killers were prosecuted.

"If the international community does not play its role in punishing the perpetrators, the Wolesi Jirga [parliament] would declare foreign troops as occupying forces,” he said.

The head of the Afghan parliamentary investigation, Sayed Ishaq Gillani, told the BBC that witnesses report seeing helicopters dropping chaff during the attack, a measure used to hide targets from ground attack.

Gillani added that locals suspect the massacre was revenge for attacks carried out last week on US forces that left several injured.

In response to the massacre Afghan PM Hamid Karzai called for US troops to quit Afghan villages and confine themselves to their military bases across the country. Furthermore, the Taliban announced that talks with US forces would be suspended.

Meanwhile the US military has detained one soldier in connection with the massacre and transferred him to Kuwait amid outcry for a public trial in Afghanistan. Currently, the soldier is being flown to Kansas base, AFP reported.

US authorities are currently conducting an investigation into the motives behind the attack, but maintain that the soldier’s trial must be dealt with by the US legal system.

It is believed that the soldier may have had alcohol problems and been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Afghans say US`s side of the story not correct: not one but 20 soldiers took part in massacreAfghan tribal leaders: Afghan civilians’ massacre pre-planned

Afghan tribal leaders: Afghan civilians’ massacre pre-planned
Press TV
Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:37PM GMT

Afghan tribal leaders say the recent massacre of Afghan civilians by US troops has been pre-planned and not carried out by a lone soldier, Press TV reports.

US soldiers keep watch at the entrance of a military base near Alkozai village following the shooting of Afghan civilians allegedly committed by a rogue US soldier in Panjwayi district, Kandahar province on March 11, 2012 

The tribal leaders of the southern province of Kandahar said on Monday that several US forces, not a single soldier, contributed to the brutal carnage of Afghan civilians and that the violent action had been planned previously. 

• Original story: American soldier has a 'breakdown' and shoots nine children dead in their sleep in house-to-house shooting rampage in Afghanistan that killed 16 civilians  

They said the carnage was in retaliation against a deadly bomb attack on the US troops in the Zangabad district in the town of Panjwaii in the province of Kandahar, which inflicted serious damage on the American military forces.

Following the blast, the American forces summoned local Afghans and tribal leaders of the region and vowed a bloody revenge on their children and wives, Kandahar tribal leaders added.

On Sunday, a US soldier opened fire on Afghan civilians inside their homes, killing at least 16 and injuring several others in the town of Panjwaii.

Local witnesses, however, put the number of the victims at 18, saying nearly a dozen bodies of the Afghan victims were burnt after the slaughter.

Kandahar tribal leaders called on the Afghan government and the international community to carry out an investigation into the crime and put the perpetrators of the heinous act on trial in an Afghan court.

Afghan lawmakers have also called for a public trial of the US troops involved in the massacre.

Meanwhile, Afghan Taliban have vowed revenge against US forces.

AZA/ AO/JR

Afghan civilian bodies burnt after shooting spree by US soldier

‘US forces burned bodies of Afghans after massacre’
Press TV
Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:46AM GMT

Afghan eyewitnesses say US troopers have burnt nearly a dozen bodies of the Afghan victims, whom American servicemen had killed during an earlier massacre.

UPDATED:'Several drunk troops behind bloodbath, laughed on shooting-spree, burned corpses'
Original story: US Soldier goes on a killing spree, just what is going on in Afghanistan? (WARNING: Graphic images)

A mourner cries over the bodies of the Afghan civilians, shot by US forces, in the Alkozai village in Kandahar Province in southeastern Afghanistan on March 11, 2012. Image: Press TV

Early Sunday, US forces opened fire on Afghan civilians inside their homes in the district of Panjwaii in the southern province of Kandahar, killing at least 17 civilians and injuring several others. The Taliban militants said at least 50 people were killed in the massacre.

Earlier reports said the assassin was a lone US sergeant.

Villagers said the US forces later collected 11 of the bodies, including those of four girls under the age of six, and set them on fire.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the bloodshed, calling it an inhuman, intentional, and unforgiveable act.

• Afghan MPs call for public trial of US forces involved in Afghan massacre
• Pentagon rebuffs Afghan trial in shooting spree
• Taliban vow revenge against US troops for murdering Afghans
• US offers condolence over killing Afghan civilians

“When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces, this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action," Karzai said in a statement.

"The government and the people of Afghanistan demand an explanation from the United States government of this incident."

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan have been a major source of tension between Kabul and Washington.

The outrages came in the wake of violent clashes in several Afghan provinces over recent desecration of the Holy Qur’an by the United States forces at the US-run Bagram Airbase in the province of Parwan in northeastern Afghanistan. The violence left over 30 people, including six American forces, dead and around 180 others injured.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan was launched in 2001. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues to rise across the country, despite the presence there of tens of thousands of US-led troops.

GJH/MF/HN

Additional Info:

• Afghan civilian murders by US Forces story continued...
• US Soldier goes on a killing spree, just what is going on in Afghanistan? (WARNING: Graphic images)

Afghan civilian murders by US Forces story continued...

Taliban vows revenge against US forces over Afghan civilian murders
NEWSCORE/NEW YORK POST
Last Updated: 9:28 AM, March 12, 2012

UPDATE: Pentagon rebuffs Afghan trial in shooting spree


KABUL -- Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents vowed revenge Monday against "sick-minded American savages" after a US soldier killed 16 villagers in their homes, while the Afghan parliament demanded the perpetrator be put on public trial in the country.

The Taliban would "take revenge from the invaders and the savage murderers for every single martyr," the hardline Islamist group said in a statement on their website.

...Karzai reacted with anger to the incident, saying, "When the Americans are killing civilians intentionally, this is called terror and it is an unforgivable act."
Obama called Karzai on Sunday to personally express his "shock and sadness" at the incident.
"I am deeply saddened by the reported killing and wounding of Afghan civilians," Obama said in a statement. "I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering."
...

(click here to read the full article)

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/taliban_vows_revenge_against_us_eM2vmql8IoZbudcJG2KdsK#ixzz1ouaCjV1r

• American soldier has a 'breakdown' and shoots nine children dead in their sleep in house-to-house shooting rampage in Afghanistan that killed 16 civilians - Original story; WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES

US Soldier goes on a killing spree, just what is going on in Afghanistan? (WARNING: Graphic images)

American soldier has a 'breakdown' and shoots nine children dead in their sleep in house-to-house shooting rampage in Afghanistan that killed 16 civilians

Daily Mail
By BETH STEBNER
PUBLISHED: 08:54 EST, 11 March 2012 | UPDATED: 20:07 EST, 11 March 2012

• Shooter identified as Army staff sergeant from Fort Lewis, Washington
• Base regarded as 'most troubled in the military,' that housed soldiers involved in Afghan 'thrill killings' case in 2010
• Assigned to support a special operations unit of either Green Berets or Navy SEALs
• He allegedly went into three homes early this morning and shot dead 16 people after 'suffering mental breakdown'
• Nine children and three women among those reported dead
• Relative said he 'poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them'
• Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned shootings as 'assassination'
• President Obama called attack 'tragic' and 'shocking'
• Attack could deepen strife and comes weeks after outrage over Koran burning at NATO base left at least 30 dead
• Afghan Taliban said in email they are likely to retaliate

Sixteen innocent Afghan civilians - including nine children and three women - were shot and killed by a rogue U.S. soldier who opened fire after suffering a 'mental breakdown' early this morning.

The Army staff sergeant, who was stationed at a U.S. base in Kandahar, reportedly entered three Afghan family’s homes around 3am this morning and began the killing spree. A relative of the deceased added that he then 'poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them.'
The shooter was identified by U.S. officials as an Army staff sergeant from Fort Lewis, Washington, who was believed to have acted alone.

Initial reports indicated he returned to the base after the shooting, turned himself in and was taken into custody at a NATO base in Afghanistan.

Disbelief: Two grief-stricken Afghan men look into the van where the body of a badly burned child lays, wrapped in a blue blanket.

(click here to read full article and view images, video WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2113410/US-soldier-shoots-dead-16-Afghan-civilians-house-house-shooting-spree-suffering-mental-breakdown.html#ixzz1orsmKp5c