US troops execute 10 Afghan children: Protest rallies in Kabul & Jalalabad.

(Januay 12, Kabul, Sri Lanka Guardian) On December 26, 2009, in a remote area of Kunar province, US troops went into a village, took out 10 children, 6 of them only 12 years old, and killed them. Probably the troops were enraged that they could not find the Taliban sniping at them This atrocity has outraged the general population in the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad where there is little support for the Taliban. On December 30, Afghans demonsrated in those two cities and held Obama responsible for the crimes. For the first time he was burned in effigy.

Several hundred Afghans demonstrated in the capital and in the eastern city of Jalalabad where the likeness of Obama, adorned with a small American flag, burned on a pole held above demonstrators. In Kabul, protesters carried signs that read: "Does peacekeeping mean killing children?" and "Stop killing us."

Karzai said in a statement that he talked to the relatives of the Kunar victims to express his condolences and pledge to bring to justice those responsible for the attack. Asadullah Wafa, a senior adviser to Karzai who led a 10-member investigative team to Kunar province, said he was convinced that all those killed were innocent civilians.

"I have talked to the principal of the school in the village and he gave us details about the killed children," Wafa said. "The schoolchildren cannot be al-Qaida."

According to the NATO statement, the initial review by Wafa's delegation "asserted that the dead were unarmed civilians removed by international forces from their homes and shot."]

Latest on the execution of children [With thanks to Sis. Hamdiyya]. From the Times of London:

In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster [of the local school] said that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. "Seven students were in one room," said Rahman Jan Ehsas. "A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That's why his wife wasn't killed."

A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and five were handcuffed before they were shot. "I saw their school books covered in blood," he said.

The investigation found that eight of the victims were aged from 11 to 17. The guest was a shepherd boy, 12, called Samar Gul, the headmaster said. He said that six of the students were at high school and two were at primary school. He said that all the students were his nephews.