US embassy vehicles torched in Afghan capital

AFP

31 07 2010

KABUL — Rioting erupted in Kabul Friday when two US embassy vehicles were set ablaze after one collided with a civilian car, killing a number of occupants, officials and witnesses said.

Television pictures showed the vehicles in flames and young Afghan men throwing stones at them and beating them with sticks and iron bars.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had despatched a quick reaction force to the area, outside the American embassy and near US and Afghan army bases in the centre of the city.

An ISAF official said the vehicles involved belonged to the US embassy.

« We don’t know yet how many people were killed in the accident, » interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery said.

Witnesses said four passengers in the civilian car died when it was hit by one of two armoured vehicles moving in convoy.

The US embassy in Kabul released a statement saying that « four US contract personnel » had been in the vehicle involved in the accident.

« We understand that the other car contained four Afghan passengers. We have also been informed that there were fatalities and serious injuries among the Afghans involved in the accident, » it said, without further detail.

Police fired shots in the air to quell the violence, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Afghan security forces cordoned off the area, closing the road to Kabul’s international airport, he said.

It was unclear how the vehicles were set alight, as some security firms torch cars they are forced to abandon as a matter of policy, a security contractor in Kabul said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Local resident Saleh Ahmed said the accident happened when the civilian vehicle attempted to drive on to the main road from a side street and was hit by one of the two armoured vehicles.

« The civilian vehicle was trying to get into the main road when the two foreign vehicles hit it and killed all four occupants, » he said.

« People gathered around the crash site to see what had happened, got angry and started attacking the foreigners. »

The AFP reporter at the scene said police helped the foreigners leave as the riot continued for about an hour before people started to disperse.

Young Afghan men threw stones and shouted « death to foreigners » and « death to Karzai, » referring to President Hamid Karzai, he said.

A similar traffic incident in May 2006 led to massive riots that shook the capital, leaving at least 14 people dead.

Deployments by the United States and NATO are nearing their peak of 150,000, concentrated in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where a nearly nine-year Taliban insurgency is at its most intense.

A motorcycle bomb targeting a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections killed a woman and a child in the southern city of Kandahar on Friday, police said.

The explosives-laden motorcycle was parked in a city centre alley used by the candidate, and detonated minutes after he passed by, provincial deputy police chief Fazel Ahmad Shairzad told AFP.

He blamed the attack on « enemies of Afghanistan, » a term often used to refer to the Taliban.

The parliamentary election was originally scheduled for May but postponed until September 18.

Candidates appear to be the latest targets of the Taliban, who have stepped up a campaign of roadside bombs, suicide attacks and assassinations in recent months.

Candidate Sayedullah Sayed died after a mosque in the southeastern province of Khost was bombed last Friday as he was campaigning, injuring 20 people.

Also in the south of the country, NATO said that three foreign soldiers were killed in two separate incidents — one an « insurgent attack, » the other a Taliban-style bomb — on Friday.

Their nationalities were not confirmed.

A total of 411 foreign troops have died in the Afghan war so far this year.

The toll for July is 89, compared with 102 in June, the worst month for foreign military casualties since the end of 2001.

Earlier, ISAF said three foreign soldiers, confirmed by a spokeswoman as Americans, had been killed in two separate Taliban-style bomb attacks on Thursday.

Rioting in Kabul after US embassy car kills four civilians

guardian.co.uk

30 07 2010

Angry mob torches vehicles, chants slogans and confronts police, sparking fears 2006 city-wide riots will be repeated

The Afghan capital is on high alert after rioting sparked by the death of four civilians when a US embassy vehicle crashed into their car. There are fears of a repeat of the city-wide riots that struck Kabul in 2006.

Police fired shots into the air in a bid to disperse an angry mob that torched two embassy vehicles and threw stones at police and Nato soldiers who rushed to the scene near the centre of Kabul’s diplomatic quarter.

Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, the head of Kabul’s crime investigation department, said six Afghan civilians were involved in the accident and four died. The US embassy said the vehicle had been carrying four US contractors who « co-operated immediately with local Afghan security forces after the incident ».

« Our sympathies go out to the families of those Afghans injured or killed in this tragic accident, » the embassy statement said.

A western official said two embassy vehicles went to the scene to rescue the contractors but after one of the rescue cars got stuck on a central embankment everyone was forced to get into a single car.

The stranded rescue vehicle and the original car were left at the scene and torched by the rioters.

According to local news agency Pajhwok, despite efforts to cordon off the area an angry crowd of hundreds of civilians soon appeared chanting slogans against foreign troops and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

Witnesses said several Afghan police were wounded after being hit by stones thrown by protesters in an area close to a US military base and a few minutes’ walk from the main gate of the US embassy.

It is one of the most serious outbreaks of public anger in the capital since 2006 when Kabul was struck by hours of rioting after a US military convoy ploughed into a group of pedestrians. Buildings run by foreign aid charities were ransacked and torched during that unrest.

In the latest case, most organisations with foreign staff ordered all of their expat employees into lockdown, banning them from movement around the city. Restrictions were mostly lifted by evening.

One foreign executive working in the capital described the drive down the Jalalabad Road to his guesthouse as « very hairy …. with crowds stoning vehicles with foreigners in them although fortunately not mine. But the car immediately behind me was battered. »

Riots in Kabul after deadly car accident

afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com

31 07 2010

Scores of people rioted in Kabul on Friday after a vehicle carrying four U.S. contractors was involved in an accident with a car carrying four Afghans.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said it had been informed of deaths and serious injuries among the Afghans in the accident. After the accident, people burned the American vehicle and another going with it and they threw rocks at Americans.

« The U.S. contract personnel cooperated immediately with local Afghan security forces … who were on the scene and dealing with the situation. Our sympathies go out to the families of those Afghans injured or killed in this tragic accident, » the embassy said.

~ par Alain Bertho sur 31 juillet 2010.

Publié dans émeutes, riots