Rioters tore through the capital of Afghanistan on Monday, chanting ”Death to America” and torching cars and buildings after United States troops shot dead at least four people following a traffic accident.
Gunshots could be heard near Kabul’s diplomatic quarter as restaurants, shops, cars and dozens of police posts were set ablaze in the worst violence to hit the capital since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001.
The United Nations and US embassy ordered its personnel into bunkers and safe zones. Volleys of gunfire rang out as demonstrations erupted across the tense city before Afghan security forces were able to establish order.
It was not possible to confirm an immediate death toll, Kabul police criminal investigation department director Abdul Jamil Kohistani told Agence France-Presse.
The six main hospitals in the city together had 14 dead bodies and more than 140 wounded, most with gun shot wounds, according to an AFP tally.
The trouble began when a US military truck appeared to lose control and smashed into about 12 civilian vehicles at a busy intersection in the north of the city.
The US-led coalition said the accident, which may have been caused by faulty brakes, killed one person and injured several. President Hamid Karzai’s office said five people were killed in the collision, which destroyed several vehicles.
People, angered by the carnage, started pelting the military vehicles with stones.
US troops then opened fire and killed at least four people, an AFP photographer at the scene said. He said two men were shot dead next to him, and two other bodies were found after the burst of gunfire. Several were wounded.
The coalition said there were ”indications that at least one coalition military vehicle fired warning shots over the crowd.” It said it regretted the incident and was investigating.
The shooting set off more fury as protesters held aloft one of the bodies and chanted: ”Death to America, Death to Karzai.”
”These traitors killed at least 10 people. Death to them,” a protestor named Ahmadullah told an AFP reporter, referring to the American troops.
Another said: ”These cowards opened fire into the crowd and killed them like sheep. First they drove into the people’s cars, destroyed them and then fired onto the people who were only throwing stones at them.
”They think Afghanistan is a playground where they can practise shooting,” he said, without giving his name.
The coalition troops left the scene as Afghan police arrived. The growing mob turned on police, setting alight a police post and several police vehicles, the photographer said. Afghan police also opened fire.
Crowds later marched through the capital. One group of about 1 000 people pushed through the city centre to a diplomatic quarter, and smaller mobs of a couple of hundred people rioted elsewhere.
Some of the marchers were carrying knives. One man said: ”Where are the Americans?”
”We are hearing a lot of gunshots,” an UN employee, Marina Walter, said from a government office in the centre of the city. The UN had ordered all its employees to stay where they were, declaring the city a no-go zone, she said.
The offices of Care International were among the buildings torched and the complex was also looted, but no one was hurt, an employee said.
A mob of demonstrators tried to move towards the US embassy but were dispersed.
Witnesses said they saw at least three people shot dead in the rioting.
Two had been trying to break through a police cordon and move into an area that includes the presidential palace and UN offices. Another was killed outside the luxury Serena Hotel.
The incident comes just over a week after a major coalition strike against Taliban insurgents in the south of Afghanistan. The country’s main human rights group said that attack killed about 34 civilians. — AFP
