THE US military is investigating reports that seven members of Afghanistan’s security forces were killed in an air strike launched during an operation to search for two missing American soldiers.
The incident threatened to aggravate tensions between Hamid Karzai, the newly re-elected president, and western allies, who have issued strident warnings in the past week for him to crack down on corruption or risk losing their support.
Mr Karzai, whose relations with western backers were further strained by revelations of fraud at the August polls, told the US Public Broadcasting Service yesterday that individuals involved in corruption would have no place his government. He also said donor countries shared responsibility for a lack of transparency in aid projects.
“There is no accountability of their contracts and there is a serious corruption in the implementation of those projects,” he said. “I am hopeful that, by joint co-operation, we will be able to overcome all these challenges.”
Washington and Europe have called on the Afghan president to tackle endemic graft since winning disputed elections a week ago after his main rival dropped out of a planned run-off, saying the vote would be neither free nor fair.
Confirmation that Nato air power was to blame for the deaths of the four Afghan soldiers and three police would represent one of the worst instances of Nato air power inflicting casualties on friendly forces since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
The Nato-led force said an Afghan civilian working in the Afghan army was also killed during the search in the western Badghis province on Friday. The wounded included five US soldiers and 17 members of the Afghan security forces.
Afghanistan’s defence ministry said the casualties were likely to have been caused by a Nato air strike. The international force said searchers had repeatedly clashed with insurgents and it was seeking to establish what had happened.
Abdul Sammad, a former district official in Badghis province, said he lost his uncle and son in the air strike. “I know there are Taliban there, but it is not an excuse for killing civilians,” he told the Financial Times.
Two members of the US 82nd Airborne Division vanished on Wednesday while attempting to retrieve airdropped supplies from a river. Police said they had drowned. The Taliban yesterday retracted an earlier claim that it had retrieved their bodies.
There was no further word on their possible fate yesterday.
Mr Karzai has repeatedly criticised the Nato force for inflicting civilian casualties.
Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, has revised guidelines for the use of air power as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy.
Barack Obama, the US president, is facing mounting political pressure to declare how many more troops he may send to back Gen McChrystal’s plan. – (Copyright The Financial Times 2009)