Afghan protestors accuse US soldiers of killing civilians

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SHINDAND, Afghanistan (Thomson Financial) - Hundreds of Afghans have taken to the streets in western Afghanistan, accusing US soldiers of killing scores of civilians in fighting the coalition said killed 136 Taliban fighters.

The protest started in Zerkoh Valley in Herat province, where US Special Forces and Afghan police said they killed the fighters, and moved to the town of Shindand about 13 miles away, police said.

Locals stoned and torched the offices of the Shindand district governor and police chief in an angry demonstration that lasted several hours.

'More than 1,000 people (took part) in the demonstration,' Herat police chief Mohammad Shafiq Fazli said. 'Now the situation is under the control of the national army and police.'

A member of a tribal council in the area, Lal Mohammad, said there were no Taliban insurgents among the dead whom he said included children, women and old men.

Many were killed in bombing raids, he said, adding people were also angry that American troops had searched their houses at night.

'The people they have killed are not Taliban, they are civilians. They have killed civilians, including children,' another demonstrator said, without giving his name. 'We don't want the Americans in our area.'

Chants of 'Death to America' could be heard in the background.

Fazli said police had not yet established how many people were killed and who they were.

The US-led coalition said its special forces, accompanied by police and other coalition members, attacked Taliban fighting positions in the valley on Sunday with mortars, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

Coalition aircraft dropped 'multiple munitions on several identified enemy locations'. An AC-130 gunship killed 26 fighters on both sides of the valley, it said in a statement.

'A total of seven enemy positions were destroyed, and 87 Taliban fighters were killed during the 14-hour engagement,' it added.

Two days earlier, more than 70 fighters had attacked a US Special Forces and Afghan police unit on a night-time patrol in the area.

The security forces retaliated with ground and air fire, killing 49 Taliban, it said. A US soldier was also killed.

'Every precaution was taken to prevent injury to innocent Afghan civilians during the two battles, and there were no civilian injuries reported,' the statement said.

There have been several cases of civilians being killed in military action targeted at insurgents trying to bring down Afghanistan's Western-backed government, and of communities making claims -- sometimes rejected by authorities -- of civilian casualties.

In eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said on Sunday it killed four militants in a raid on a suspected suicide bombing cell, with two civilians killed in the crossfire. Locals said all the dead were civilians.

The raid took place in an area of Nangarhar province where US Marines were accused of opening fire on civilians after a March 4 ambush, killing about a dozen.

The Taliban-led insurgency was at its deadliest last year with more than 4,000 people killed, about a quarter of whom were civilians.