NATO Troops Fire on Vehicle, Kill Four Unarmed Afghans

[Flaneur]

Source: New York Times

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO troops opened fire on a vehicle in southeast Afghanistan, killing four unarmed Afghans, the alliance said Tuesday, the latest in a series of recent incidents the United Nations has called disturbing.

The father of two of the victims said three of those killed were teenagers and the fourth was a policeman. They were returning from a volleyball match, added Rahmatullah Mansoor, a judge in Khost's provincial court.

NATO initially said two were "known insurgents" but later acknowledged all may have been civilians. Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the incident in a written statement saying the four were civilians and the act went against foreign troops' commitment to protect the public.

The issue of civilian casualties caused by foreign forces is an emotive one in Afghanistan and has undermined public support for their presence in the country. In the latest incident, troops fired on the vehicle after it accelerated towards their convoy in Khost province and ignored light signals and warning shots, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/04/20/world/international-uk-afghanistan-civilians.html?_r=2&ref=global-home

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This is a very creepy article, worth reading in its entirety. Not only did NATO initially lie about the incident (big surprise!), but it has created a BIOMETRIC DATABASE of Afghans and initially used it to claim the victims were Taliban.

Fucking creept totalitarian war machine. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you?

[Flaneur]

1. The biometric database:

From the article:

A spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Vician, later said the two had been described as insurgents because they were found in the military's vast bio-metric database.

The database includes tens of thousands of civilians as well as suspected insurgents, and Vician acknowledged that the two could have been civilians included for another reason. None of the four were armed and no weapons were found, he said.

[Flaneur]

2. Winning hearts and minds:

From the article:

Relatives and friends of the victims gathered in Khost, the provincial capital to bury the dead. One body, filmed by Reuters television, was clearly that of a young teenage boy. Rahmatullah Mansoor said his two sons and two nephews were returning from a volleyball match in Gorbaz district when NATO troops opened fire on their car.

His sons, Faizullah, 14, and Nasratullah, 17, and one of his nephews, Maiwand, 15, were schoolboys, Mansoor told Reuters. His other nephew in the car, Amrullah, was a policeman in his 20s who worked in Khost's prison, he said.

Members of the Afghan security forces would normally be included in the NATO military bio-metric database.

"They (international troops) saw that there were four young boys in the car and opened fire on them. I think it was an intentional act," Mansoor said. "Every person is a suspect or a Taliban member in the eyes of NATO troops. They're not here to protect us, they're here to murder us. We don't want any compensation from NATO or the Americans. I lost my sons, my nephews. I want the perpetrators who killed them to be tried in a martial court," Mansoor said.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Wow. Whoever's responsible for us being there deserves a Nobel Peace Prize

:grr:

[BunkerHill24]

4. trigger-happy ass*oles

[mwrguy]

5. indiscriminate butchers

is more like it.

[BunkerHill24]

8. Indeed.

Welcome to DU :thumbsup:

[Robb]

6. WSJ is reporting all 4 in the car were under 18. nt

[BunkerHill24]

7. Your tax dollars at work! n/t