It's
sad news. I'm not sure how the President can apologize for this.
I wonder what possessed this guy to do it?
KABUL — An American soldier wandered outside his base in a remote southern Afghan village shortly before dawn Sunday and allegedly opened fire on civilians inside homes, killing at least 16, Afghan and U.S. officials said.
The attack marked perhaps the grisliest act by a U.S. soldier in the decade-long Afghan war and seemed all but certain to stoke anti-American anger in a crucial battleground as foreign troops start to thin out in the south. Afghan officials said women and children were among those killed in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban movement.
Coming as Afghan rage over last month’s burning of Korans by U.S. soldiers was beginning to taper off, the killings threatened to spark a new crisis in the strained relationship between Washington and Kabul. The two nations are in the midst of contentious negotiations over an agreement that could extend the presence of U.S. troops in the country beyond 2014.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the shootings an “assassination” and demanded an explanation from U.S. officials, the Associated Press reported. “This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians, and cannot be forgiven,” Karzai said in a statement, the AP reported.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he spoke with Karzai on Sunday and reassured him that the U.S. military was working quickly to determine what happened and “bring those responsible to justice.”
