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Take your fight to Pakistan
Published: March 13, 2011
ASADABAD (AFP) - An emotional Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday told international troops to 'stop their operations in our land', his strongest remarks yet over mistaken killings of civilians.
Karzai's comments came after a week in which a relative of his was killed in a raid by foreign forces and he rejected an apology by the US commander of troops General David Petraeus for the deaths of nine children in a NATO strike.
"I would like to ask NATO and the US with honour and humbleness and not with arrogance to stop their operations in our land," Karzai said in Pashto as he visited the dead children's relatives in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan. "We are very tolerant people but now our tolerance has run out."
In an apparent reference to neighbour Pakistan, the Western-backed Karzai said international forces "should go and fight this war where we have showed them (it is) over the last nine years". Insurgents have hideouts in Pakistan's lawless border regions. "This war is not in our land," Karzai added. A spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could not immediately comment. Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said the president in his remarks had again been urging an end to accidental civilian casualties, which Omer described as "a big cause of the current disagreement" between Kabul and the West. "The president, on behalf of the Afghan people, renewed his call on NATO to stop operations that bring about unnecessary losses to the Afghan people," the spokesman said. "We have always maintained that the war on terror cannot be fought in the towns and villages of Afghanistan." During his visit to Kunar, Karzai also met relatives of those caught up in another incident in the province in which Afghan officials say 65 people died but ISAF says left nine people injured. The Afghan president wept as he held a young child who he said had her leg amputated following the latter attack. The family of every person killed who attended was given 100,000 Afghanis ($2,300) while those injured received half that amount from the head of an official delegation investigating civilian casualties, an AFP reporter said. The latest Kunar incident, which occurred this month as the nine children gathered firewood, forced the ever-sensitive issue of civilian casualties caused by international troops back to the top of the political agenda. On Sunday, Karzai angrily rejected a public apology from Petraeus, the US commander of foreign troops, over the deaths. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates also made a personal apology to Karzai during a visit to Afghanistan Monday.
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-...itics/13-Mar-2011/Take-your-fight-to-Pakistan
Published: March 13, 2011
ASADABAD (AFP) - An emotional Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday told international troops to 'stop their operations in our land', his strongest remarks yet over mistaken killings of civilians.
Karzai's comments came after a week in which a relative of his was killed in a raid by foreign forces and he rejected an apology by the US commander of troops General David Petraeus for the deaths of nine children in a NATO strike.
"I would like to ask NATO and the US with honour and humbleness and not with arrogance to stop their operations in our land," Karzai said in Pashto as he visited the dead children's relatives in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan. "We are very tolerant people but now our tolerance has run out."
In an apparent reference to neighbour Pakistan, the Western-backed Karzai said international forces "should go and fight this war where we have showed them (it is) over the last nine years". Insurgents have hideouts in Pakistan's lawless border regions. "This war is not in our land," Karzai added. A spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could not immediately comment. Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said the president in his remarks had again been urging an end to accidental civilian casualties, which Omer described as "a big cause of the current disagreement" between Kabul and the West. "The president, on behalf of the Afghan people, renewed his call on NATO to stop operations that bring about unnecessary losses to the Afghan people," the spokesman said. "We have always maintained that the war on terror cannot be fought in the towns and villages of Afghanistan." During his visit to Kunar, Karzai also met relatives of those caught up in another incident in the province in which Afghan officials say 65 people died but ISAF says left nine people injured. The Afghan president wept as he held a young child who he said had her leg amputated following the latter attack. The family of every person killed who attended was given 100,000 Afghanis ($2,300) while those injured received half that amount from the head of an official delegation investigating civilian casualties, an AFP reporter said. The latest Kunar incident, which occurred this month as the nine children gathered firewood, forced the ever-sensitive issue of civilian casualties caused by international troops back to the top of the political agenda. On Sunday, Karzai angrily rejected a public apology from Petraeus, the US commander of foreign troops, over the deaths. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates also made a personal apology to Karzai during a visit to Afghanistan Monday.
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-...itics/13-Mar-2011/Take-your-fight-to-Pakistan
