AFGHANISTAN: An early-morning traffic accident in Kabul involving a US military vehicle rapidly degenerated yesterday into the worst upheaval in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban, as angry protesters burned vehicles and buildings, ransacked shops and aid agencies and hurled rocks and invective at American soldiers.
By the time the authorities imposed a rare night-time curfew in the normally peaceable capital, eight people had been killed and more than 100 injured. The upheaval was a shock to a city long considered an oasis of security, and a serious blow to the authority of President Hamid Karzai, who is struggling to contain an escalating insurgency in the south.
It was also an alarming day for the American military, with the future of Afghanistan, often trumpeted as a triumph for US foreign policy, now coming under increasing scrutiny.
Yesterday the US-led coalition said it killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in a bombing raid on a village in Helmand province. The air strikes take the death toll from the past two weeks to more than 350, according to the highest estimates.
The trouble in Kabul was triggered by an accident involving a US military convoy that careered through a busy Kabul intersection yesterday morning, crashing into a dozen vehicles and killing one person, according to a military statement. But accounts differed about whether US troops fired into a large crowd that gathered. A spokeswoman, Lieut Tamara Lawrence, said US soldiers only fired shots in the air. But a senior Kabul police office, Sher Shah Usafi, said they fired into the crowd, killing one person.
The response was explosive. Afghan police and soldiers rapidly deployed as rioters smashed police posts, flung rocks at US Humvee troop carriers and marched on the presidential palace, some chanting "Death to America!" Vehicles were set ablaze, businesses ransacked and aid agencies looted. Residents cowered inside their homes until a measure of calm returned.
In a televised address last night, Mr Karzai appealed to Afghans' painful memories of their destructive civil war in the 1990s in a call for people to "stand up" to the rioters. "These people are the enemies of Afghanistan," he said. "You should stand up against these agitators and not let them destroy our country again." Yet the rioting reflected the simmering anger that many Afghans harbour at everything from the slow pace of reconstruction to the conspicuous wealth of foreigners in Kabul and the aggressive driving tactics of US soldiers and private security contractors in the capital.
The US says the tactics are necessary for security, but one protester, Gulam Ghaus, told the Associated Press: "Americans killed innocent people. We will not stop until foreigners leave this city. We are looking for foreigners to kill."
The disturbances spread quickly to central districts frequented by foreigners and close to US and Nato military bases. Protesters tore down a billboard poster of Mr Karzai, burned a US flag and torched the offices of the aid agency Care International. "I'm pretty shaken," said Care's director, Paul Barker.
He said anger at the road accident may have sparked the initial trouble, but "simmering anger against foreign influence" caused the wider violence. - (Guardian service)