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Dispute over 'terrorist' deaths | |
(about 13 hours later) | |
Relatives of four men killed by Afghan and US-led troops in east Afghanistan say they were all innocent men. | |
A 13-year-old girl was also killed in the raid in Khost province, which a US-led coalition statement said was aimed at "suspected terrorists". | |
Meanwhile President Hamid Karzai has met the head of Nato troops in the country to discuss how to prevent civilian casualties. | |
He said he was worried by incidents of Nato soldiers "shooting around". | |
'Credible information' | |
News of Tuesday's shooting in Khost first came from the US-led coalition. | |
A statement described the four dead men as "suspected terrorists" who refused to comply with "verbal warnings" to surrender and fired upon the troops. | |
The incident happened when the security forces raided a house at Darnami village and requested the people to surrender peacefully, the statement said. | The incident happened when the security forces raided a house at Darnami village and requested the people to surrender peacefully, the statement said. |
Security forces had "credible information" that the place was a refuge for "terrorist facilitators who posed a serious threat to peace and stability in Afghanistan," coalition spokesman Col Thomas Collins said | |
An eight-year-old girl was also wounded during the raid, the coalition said | |
Local people contacted by the BBC said the dead men and dead girl were all members of the same extended family. | |
They said one of them was a policemen and that none of them had links with the Taleban or Al Qaeda. | |
Surviving family members said they had been attacked by the Taleban before. | |
They said that when they realised their house was surrounded, some of them went outside with their rifles and came under fire from the coalition troops. | |
'Rightly angered' | |
In the south of the country, President Karzai has made an impassioned plea to Nato troops to avoid civilian casualties. | |
"We've had incidents involving Nato convoys shooting around, in Kabul and Kandahar, especially," he told a news conference after talks with Nato commanders. | |
"We are rightly angered by it and worried by it. Nato is also worried by it, and is working with us to reduce such casualties." | |
On Saturday it was revealed that an investigation had been held into allegations that British troops had opened fire indiscriminately in Kandahar city after a suicide car bomb attack on a Nato-led convoy. | |
The head of Nato troops in Afghanistan, Lt Gen David Richards acknowledged Mr Karzai's concerns. | |
"There's been too much of this sort of thing going on across the force," he told the BBC. | |
"I have made it very clear it's got to be reviewed, the procedures, the training. The psychological damage on the population for getting it wrong is immense." | |
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. | |
Some 4,000 people are believed to have died this year alone in the Taleban-led insurgency - about a quarter of them civilians. | Some 4,000 people are believed to have died this year alone in the Taleban-led insurgency - about a quarter of them civilians. |
Suicide attacks and roadside bombings, particularly in the south and east, are an almost daily occurrence. | Suicide attacks and roadside bombings, particularly in the south and east, are an almost daily occurrence. |
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