> Troops deny firing on civilians after British soldier killed in Helmand
By Terri Judd in Lashkar Gah
Published: 25 June 2007
A British soldier was killed in the Helmand province of Afghanistan yesterday when his convoy was hit by an explosive device. Minutes later the troops in his convoy shot one man dead and wounded another.
Locals accused the British of killing a civilian and wounding another, but the Army said the two men had sped towards the bomb wreckage on motorbikes, ignoring both a security cordon and warning shots.
"They repeatedly ignored all the ISAF warnings, including shouts, coloured flares and aimed warning shots," said Lt Col Charlie Mayo. A senior source said the dead man was clearly identified as a militant.
"(Nato-led) ISAF forces only open fire when they believe their lives are at risk. The local Afghan population know how we operate and how our warning systems work. This was a rural area with very few civilians and we were supported by the Afghan National Police," Lt Col Mayo said.
Raz Mohammad Sayed, the director of a local hospital, said they were treating a wounded civilian while another had been killed. At the hospital, Saad Mohammad, the brother of the dead man, said he was with him when British forces opened fire in different directions, including at houses.
The soldiers had been on a routine patrol in Lashkar Gah when their vehicle was hit. There were conflicting reports as to whether the explosive had been a mine or a roadside bomb, in a town repeatedly targeted by suicide bombers.
The incident came just hours after Nato conceded that the Afghan President Hamid Karzai had a right to be "disappointed and angry" at the scale of civilian casualties, and agreed that its forces needed to do better with such incidents.
After a week in which up to 90 Afghan civilians, including children, were killed, Mr Karzai launched an angry attack on the international forces, accusing them of using disproportionate force in civilian areas and of not co-ordinating with Afghan colleagues. "Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such," he said.
The outburst comes in a year in which it has been reported that more civilians were killed by foreign troops than by insurgents. Speaking a day after the head of Nato called for an investigation into an air strike in Helmand which killed 25 civilians , Mr Karzai said innocent people were becoming "victims of reckless operations" because foreign troops had ignored Afghan advice for years.
Responding to the comments, Nato spokesman Nick Lunt told the Associated Press: "President Karzai has a right to be disappointed and angry over the scale of civilians casualties in the last few days. We need to do better than we have been doing so far. But, unlike the Taliban, we do not set out to cause civilian casualties, and that is a critical difference."
While officially the British military has been at pains to praise the fledgling Afghan National Army and Police, privately many complain of the complexity of dealing with the new forces.
Meanwhile, in the Sangin area, militants executed the kidnapped son of a police officer yesterday, reneging on a deal to release the hostage in exchange for a Taliban commander, deputy district police chief Abdullah Khan said.
After the commander was freed, they changed the terms of the deal, demanding that the district police chief - the father of the hostage - step down, handing over the body of his son.
Also in Helmand, insurgents opened fire on Afghan and coalition troops, who returned fire and called for airstrikes on the militants' position in Langar village. One Estonian soldier and an Afghan soldier died.
n A German newsmagazine reported yesterday that two of its journalists, who are embedded with troops from the US 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan, witnessed Afghan and American soldiers abusing Afghan prisoners.
The weekly Focus reported that, while on patrol with troops this month south-west of Kabul, the reporter Wolfgang Bauer and photographer Karsten Schoene witnessed an incident that they said amounted to torture.
