NATO troops fire at approaching vehicle, killing three Afghan civilians

[News_Editor]

NATO troops fire at approaching vehicle, killing three Afghan civilians

2011-07-28 15:30:01 GMT+7 (ICT)

KABUL (BNO NEWS) -- Three Afghan civilians were killed by coalition service members on late Tuesday evening when their vehicle failed to stop in northeastern Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Thursday.

The shooting took place at around 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday in the Nejrab district of Kapisa province when a civilian vehicle was seen approaching the rear of an ISAF unit. That unit had been forced to stop on a road due to stones blocking the route.

"The unit attempted to halt the vehicle by signaling it with lasers but it continued moving towards the patrol," an ISAF spokesperson said. "The unit then fired small arms warning shots in front of the vehicle, but it continued to move towards the unit. Finally, the unit fired small arms rounds into the vehicle at which time the vehicle came to a stop."

ISAF said its service members found the bodies of three civilians inside the vehicle while four others were injured. The office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai identified the victims as a child, a pregnant woman, and a young man.

"The two more seriously wounded were Medevac (airlifted) to Kabul and the minor wounded were transported by [Afghan National Police] to Nejrab Hospital," the ISAF spokesperson added.

Karzai's office "strongly condemned" what it described as a NATO 'attack'. "The incident happened when the NATO forces shot at a vehicle which was moving towards them and thought it was a suicide bomber," Karzai's office said in a statement.

Karzai said that no apology can return the lives of the civilians who were killed and urged NATO forces to protect civilian life while avoiding past mistakes. "Innocent people are being killed every day," Karzai's office said.

According to a mid-year report released and conducted by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the war-torn country experienced a 15 percent increase in conflict-related civilian deaths in the first six months of 2011. The growth was mainly due to the use of landmine-like pressure plate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by insurgents.

UNAMA said it documented 1,462 civilian deaths in the period, with 80 percent of them attributed to insurgents, an increase of 28 percent in comparison with the same period in 2010. A further 14 percent of civilian casualties were attributed to pro-government forces such as the Afghan military and ISAF. Six percent of civilian deaths were not attributed to any party of the conflict.

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