Kabul: NATO said on Thursday that four insurgents
were killed during a raid the night before, southwest of
Kabul, but villagers insisted the dead were civilians.
About 500 angry demonstrators collected the wooden
coffins holding the bodies from the hospital and bore them
atop vehicles in a procession toward the provincial capital of
Ghazni.
Witnesses said foreign troops descended the Qara Bagh
district of Ghazni province in helicopters and stormed two
houses at about 10 pm yesterday.
They killed a father and his two sons along with a
neighbor even though they weren`t armed, according to Musa
Jalali and other residents of the Baram village.
NATO denied any civilians were harmed in yesterday`s
action. It said the raid was a joint operation with Afghan
forces targeting a high-level Taliban commander who has
organized attacks against Afghan and NATO troops and helped
smuggle foreign fighters in the area.
"The joint force engaged insurgents while clearing a
compound and killed them," the international force said in a
statement.
One of those killed was a young man estimated to be about
15 years old who had grabbed the weapons of a service member,
it said, adding one insurgent was detained during the
operation.
PTI
