Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

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ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against the killing of 10 civilians, mostly teenagers, in a raid by foreign forces, which heightened tensions between the Afghan government and NATO.

By Jerome Starkey In Kabul, Times Online, December 30, 2009

Afghan investigators today accused US-led troops of dragging ten civilians from their beds and shooting them dead during a night raid.

Officials said eight children and teenagers were among the dead and all but one of the victims was from the same family.

The reports sparked angry protests in Kabul and Jalalabad, with children as young as ten chanting “death to America” and demanding foreign forces leave Afghanistan at once.

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in Kunar province, after reports of a massacre surfaced on Monday. “The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan Village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said.

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Afghan civilian casualties up 10 percent: UN

By Daily Times, December 30, 2009

KABUL: Civilian deaths in Afghanistan rose more than 10 percent in the first 10 months of 2009, UN figures showed on Tuesday, amid anger over the alleged killing of children in a Western military operation.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) put civilian deaths in the Afghan war at 2,038 for the first 10 months of 2009, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008 — an increase of 10.8 percent.

The figures were released a day after President Hamid Karzai launched an investigation into reports that 10 people, most of them school children, were killed in a raid by foreign troops near the Pakistan border. The UN calculations show the vast majority, or 1,404 civilians, were killed by insurgents fighting for the overthrow of Karzai’s government and to eject Western troops. UNAMA said pro-government forces caused 468 deaths, including NATO and US-led forces, and 166 by “other actors”.

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