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NATO troops kill relative of Afghan president

10 March 2011 18:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. NATO troops shot and killed a relative of President Hamid Karzai during in a nighttime raid in the Afghan leaderâ€™s home province of Kandahar, family members said Thursday, APA reports quoting Los Angeles Times.

The incident is likely to exacerbate strained relations between Karzai and the Western military over civilian casualties. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this week offered a personal apology over the deaths of nine young boys in a helicopter-borne strike by U.S. forces earlier this month. Karzai had previously rejected an apology from the top Western commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. David H. Petraeus, as insufficient.

The man killed in the Dand district of Kandahar province was identified by relatives and district officials as Yar Mohammad Khan, who was in his 60s. His exact relationship to the Afghan leader was not immediately clear. Some reports described him as a cousin, but many Afghans use the term to refer to a variety of members of their extended families.

The NATO force initially identified the slain man as the father of a suspected Taliban leader who was the target of the raid. It subsequently backed off on that statement but continued to refer to him as an "armed individual" who was shot because he was deemed a threat to troops carrying out the raid.

"Coalition forces are aware of the conflicting reports about the identities of those involved, and have initiated an inquiry to determine the facts," NATOâ€™s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

Canadian media reports said the troops at the scene were under Canadian command. However, forces deployed in Dand district, on the outskirts of Kandahar city, also include some Americans.

Karzai had no immediate public comment. The Reuters news agency quoted his spokesman, Waheed Omar, as saying the Afghan leader was saddened by the incident and had ordered an investigation.

The incident comes as a new United Nations report said civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2010 had risen by 15% over the previous year, to nearly 2,800. The report, issued Wednesday, blamed about three-quarters of those deaths on insurgents, but urged all parties to exercise restraint in order to avoid hurting or killing civilians.

In public statements, Karzai has been highly critical of night raids by Western forces, saying they should be carried out only by Afghan police and soldiers. Rights groups have long criticized the raids because of the potential for confusion that could lead to accidental deaths.

Many Afghans, particularly in rural areas, keep weapons in their homes for self-defense, and are likely to brandish them if strangers come to their family compounds at night.

Western commanders, however, describe targeted raids as a vital tool against the insurgency. Such strikes have resulted in the capture or deaths of nearly 3,000 Taliban suspects in the last three months alone, military officials say.

The Dand district chief, Hamdullah Nazek, said two of Khanâ€™s bodyguards and three neighbors had been detained by the Western troops.

The NATO force identified one of those captured as a Taliban leader who was responsible for "the distribution of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices to fighters throughout Kandahar city." It characterized "several" other detainees as suspected insurgents.