Afghan Students Protest Against Civilian Casualties

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Afghan Students Protest Against Civilian Casualties
by Akram Walizada

KABUL - Chanting "Death to America!" and weeping as they prayed, hundreds of Kabul university students marched on Sunday in protest against U.S. air strikes last week that Afghan officials say killed more than 100 civilians.

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai says more than 100 and perhaps as many as 130 civilians were killed in air strikes in western Farah province during the battle. Provincial officials say villagers have drawn up lists with names of 147 dead.

If confirmed, such a toll would make it the deadliest incident for civilians since U.S. forces launched their fight against the Taliban in 2001.

The incident has stoked Afghan hostility to U.S. troops even as Washington is sending 17,000 reinforcements in coming months to the country's south, heartland of the Taliban and the drug trade that produces nearly all the world's heroin.

Karzai has called for a halt to U.S. air strikes, a dramatic change in tactics which military experts say is highly unlikely.

"MASSACRE"

Students at the university issued a statement calling for troops responsible for civilian casualties to be prosecuted.

"From one side our people are fed up with the beheadings and suicide attacks by the Taliban. From other side, the massacre of people by U.S. forces is a crime they can never forget," it said.

At the demonstration, attended mainly by male students, marchers held aloft banners that read in English: "USA is biggest terrorist around the world!"

"We gathered here to share our sadness with the innocent people who were martyred. We call on the international community, Afghan government to stop the killing of innocents, stop the killing of an Afghan generation," said student Ahmad Fahim.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/10-1

[pnutbutr]

1. have they determined

that the people were not killed by grenades and smaller arms and them strewn around as was suggested by the evidence of the injuries?

[Echo In Light]

2. Bump