Karzai slams US-led coalition

ALI DAYA (AFP) - An Afghan army colonel whose wife and children died in a US-led raid demanded action against
the troops responsible Friday as President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings.
The operation in Khost province around midnight Wednesday killed the wife of Afghan National Army artillery
commander Awal Khan, two of his children and a brother. The troops also shot a pregnant woman and killed her
unborn baby, which had almost come to term, Khan and a provincial health official said.
“The (international) coalition has to stop this cruelty and brutal action,” a grieving Khan told AFP in the village of
Ali Daya a few kilometres south of Khost.
In a statement expressing sadness about the incident, Karzai said he had ordered his interior and defence
ministries, the intelligence service and local government to investigate and present their findings to him Saturday.
Karzai had “for several years repeatedly asked the international military forces (to) carry out their
counter-terrorism operations in ways that do not cause civilian casualties,” it said.
The Khost provincial council, meanwhile, stopped work to protest against the military action. International
humanitarian organisation CARE said the slain schoolteacher had been working at a school that it supports.
“CARE strongly condemns the action and demands that international military forces operating in Afghanistan are
held accountable for their actions and avoid all attacks on innocent civilians in the country,” it said.