NATO, Afghan troops fire on Afghan crowd wounding five
KABUL, Jan 15 (Reuters) – At least five Afghan civilians were wounded when a combined force of Afghan troops and U.S. Marines opened fire on a crowd at the gate to a military base in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most volatile province, NATO said on Friday.
The incident, which took place on Wednesday but was not reported until Friday, was the second demonstration to turn violent in two days in Helmand’s Garmsir district, suggesting mounting civil unrest in a part of the country where U.S. Marines under NATO command made major advances last year.
“ANA and ISAF forces warned a crowd of between 200 and 400 assembled civilians to keep its distance from the outpost,” a NATO statement said…
Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale said both Afghan troops and the U.S. Marines subsequently fired at the crowd…
He said Taliban infiltrators in Wednesday’s crowd fired at the U.S. and Afghan troops, prompting the Afghans to return fire. The NATO statement made no mention of shots fired from the crowd… (link)
Note that the governor’s office claimed the troops had been fired on, while NATO said no such thing. This is a strange discrepancy considering the two-day delay in relasing any news about this. And it bears asking, considering this incident was covered up for two days, have there been similar incidents which have never been reported?