 |
|
“
Death to America … Death to Karzai … Death to Bush," shouted the protestors |
KABUL, May 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies)
– Some 200 people took to the streets of the Afghan capital Kabul
Saturday, May 24, to protest the U.S. embassy guards killing of Afghan
soldiers last week and called for putting them on trial or handing
them over to Afghan police.
"We want to judge the killers of the
martyrs", “Death to America", "Death to Karzai"
and "Death to Bush," read some of the banners raised by the
demonstrators, most of them teenage boys and young men.
They punched ISAF (International Security
Assistance Force) vehicles and smashed the windscreen of a jeep whose
driver was wearing a turban, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
At least two ISAF soldiers were bleeding from head
and hand wounds after their vehicle was pelted by stone-throwing
demonstrators near the close to the U.S. embassy.
One of the ISAF vehicles escaped with broken
windows while another collided with a taxi and was stoned before it
escaped too.
A soldier inside was bleeding from a head wound
while another had a bloody hand.
ISAF spokesmen were not immediately able to provide
details.
Afghan security men dressed in plain clothes and
carrying walkie-talkies followed the demonstration, while Turkish and
Italian ISAF troops patrolled past the demonstrators in armored cars.
U.S. troops guarding the compound observed from
watchtowers and through the main gate but did not react.
Dozens of Afghan police in vans later blocked the
road past the American embassy.
The heavily fortified embassy compound, guarded by
soldiers in watchtowers and protected by piles of sandbags, lies
opposite to several Afghan military buildings and a vast enclosed
military compound.
U.S. Special Forces in a Humvee vehicle with a
mounted machine gun blocked the road to the main U.N. compound.
After marching through central Kabul the
demonstrators gathered outside one of the entrances to the
presidential palace where they were blocked by around 50 armed Afghan
soldiers.
 |
|
ISAF soldiers disperse protesters outside U.S. Embassy in Kabul
|
The protestors slammed the Afghan president’s
reported contacts with deposed Taliban regime members, insecurity and
deteriorated economic situation, al-Jazeera reported.
“But there are clear signals that the Afghan
authorities allowed this spontaneous demonstration to go on,” added
the channel’s correspondent.
U.S.
soldiers on Wednesday, May 21, shot dead four Afghan soldiers and
injured two others in front of the U.S. embassy after mistakenly
thinking they were preparing to attack them amid new fears of
potential terrorist attacks around the world.
The Afghans did not return fire and said the
incident was under investigation.
After the shooting, tensions on the streets were
high as local intelligence officers and soldiers moved to disperse the
crowd.
The U.S. forces did only apologized for the
shooting which they said was only out of misunderstanding, ignoring
calls for opening investigations.
The protests came two weeks after hundreds of
students of the military university and schools in Kabul demonstrated
for days in front of the Presidential palace in Kabul against
Karzai and U.S. policies in Afghanistan.