Allauddin Khan/Associated Press
The bodies of several men and a child who witnesses said were killed
by a United States Army sergeant in southern Afghanistan. More Photos
»
By TAIMOOR SHAH and GRAHAM BOWLEY
PANJWAI, Afghanistan — American officials scrambled Monday to
understand why a veteran Army staff sergeant, a married father of two
only recently deployed here, left his base a day earlier to massacre
at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of
southern Afghanistan. The devastating, unexplained attack deepened the
sense of siege for Western personnel in this country, as denunciations
brought a moment of unity to three major Afghan factions: civilians,
insurgents and government officials.
Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar
Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the
soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door
after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate
houses. The man gathered 11 bodies, including those of 4 girls younger
than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said. At least 5 people were
injured.
While some Afghans had speculated that helicopter-borne troops were
involved, a senior American diplomat told a meeting of diplomats from
allied countries on Monday morning that the gunman had acted alone,
walking first to a village and then to a cluster of houses some 500
yards away. He returned to the base and is in custody. He is to face
charges under the military justice system, officials said. Helicopters
and other troops arrived only after the shooting, the diplomat said,
and the helicopters evacuated the wounded.
A senior American military official said the sergeant was attached to
a unit based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a major Army and Air Force
installation near Tacoma, Wash., and that he had been part of what is
called a village stabilization operation. In those operations, 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.
Panjwai, a rural district near the city of Kandahar, was traditionally
a Taliban stronghold. It was a focus of the United States military
offensive in 2010 and was the scene of heavy fighting. Two American
soldiers were killed by small-arms fire in Panjwai on March 1, and
three died in a roadside bomb attack in February.
Another senior military official said the sergeant was 38 and married
with two children. He had served three tours of duty in Iraq, this
official said, and had been deployed to Afghanistan for the first time
in December. Yet another military official said he has served in the
Army for 11 years.
Furious comments mounted on social networking sites like Afghan blogs
and Facebook, some of them accompanied by graphic photographs of what
appeared to be children slain in the attack. "This is a clear crime
and will only add to the people who hate American in Afghanistan,"
said one. "You can't give their lives back to them with apologies."
Following the attacks, the Taliban threatened vengeance, as the
insurgents often do after Western actions they depict as atrocities. A
Taliban statement posted online Monday denounced the killings, saying
they were the latest in a series of humiliations against the Afghan
people and denying that any Taliban fighters had been in the area.
The Afghan Parliament said it condemned "this inhumane and uncivilized act."
"We urge the United States government to punish the culprits and put
them on trial in an open court so that the rest of those who want to
shed our innocent people's blood take a lesson from it," it said in a
statement.
One member of Parliament from Kandahar, Mohammed Naim Lalai Hamidzai,
lashed out at the Afghan leader over the killings, suggesting that "if
President Karzai cannot fix the situation, we urge him and his vice
presidents to resign."
In a measure of the mounting mistrust between Afghans and the
coalition, however, many Afghans, including lawmakers and other
officials, said they believed the attacks had been planned, and were
incredulous that one American soldier could have carried out such
attacks without help.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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