KABUL (AFP/Reuters) - Afghan ground forces will be barred from calling in Nato airstrikes after an attack killed a number of children this week, President Hamid Karzai said Saturday.
“I issue a decree, from tomorrow none of the Afghan forces are allowed to ask for foreign air support under any conditions,” he said in an address to young officers at a military academy in Kabul.
“Our forces ask for air support from foreigners and children get killed in an airstrike,” he said. This was apparently a reference to an attack during an overnight raid by combined Afghan and Nato ground forces on a Taliban hideout in a remote eastern region on Wednesday.
Initial reports said 10 civilians, including five children and four women, were killed when the airstrike was called in.
Three Taliban commanders, including a notorious Al-Qaeda-linked militant leader called Shahpoor, were also killed in the raid, Afghan officials said.
Civilian casualties caused by Nato forces fighting Taliban insurgents are a highly sensitive issue and are regularly condemned by Karzai.
“We are happy the foreign troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan,” he said, referring to the scheduled withdrawal of US-led Nato combat troops by the end of next year.
“I have been arguing with the foreign troops, don’t bombard our houses, don’t go to our villages, don’t disrespect our people. And we hear our forces partnered with foreign forces are violating human rights.” Karzai said Afghan forces would be able to defend the country after the foreign troops withdraw.
“I agree we are passing through a challenging phase, but we are the owners of this country.
“America is not the owner of this country, Pakistan is not the owner of this country, Germany is not the owner of this country, France is not the owner of this country.
“And fortunately, we will show to the world that we can protect our country, and we can defend our country.”
More than 3,200 Nato troops, mostly Americans, have died in support of Karzai’s government in the 11-year war since the Taliban were ousted by a US invasion in 2001, but relations between the president and the US are often prickly.
Foreign air power is crucial for Afghan forces, particularly in areas like Kunar and Nuristan, which are covered with forests and rough terrain, making ground operations difficult.
Nuristan and Kunar also share a long, porous border with lawless areas inside Pakistan.
Karzai said he had been told that the airstrike was requested by the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS). “If this is true, it is very regrettable and it is very shameful. How could they ask foreigners to send planes and bomb our own houses?” he said.
According to Kunar officials one of the dead insurgents was identified as a Pakistani citizen and Taliban leader named Rocketi. A second was identified as a Taliban commander called Shahpour.
A spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said there would be no comment on any presidential decree until it was actually issued. In a meeting with Isaf Commander General Joseph Dunford following Wednesday’s bombing, Karzai stressed Allen’s 2012 directive and said such attacks must never recur.
Tensions have risen between Karzai and his foreign backers since his comments in October that the United States and its allies should target supporters of terrorism in Pakistan and stop fighting their war in Afghan villages.
The Isaf says it has reduced civilian casualties in recent years, and that insurgents such as the Taliban are now responsible for 84 per cent of all such deaths and injuries.