Afghan-U.S. relations damaged by shooting: analyst

The actions of a reportedly lone U.S. soldier killing 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province in the early morning hours on Sunday has strained an already tense relationship between Washington and Kabul even further, said an Afghanistan analyst on Monday.

The shooting spree comes on the heels of the Qu’ran book burnings and the urination on Taliban corpses by U.S. soldiers in separate occasions last month.

“The timing of the incident is critical. U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai are negotiating a 10-year security pact and one of the sticking points of the security pact is the night raids," said Shukria Dellawar, fellow for the Center for International Policy and consultant for the center’s Afghanistan study group in Washington, D.C.

"The unfortunate thing about this incident is that the soldier was out at 3 a.m. and went on a shooting spree killing civilians – mostly women and children,” she said.

Out of the 16 civilians killed, nine were children and three were women and the soldier then set the bodies on fire, Reuters reported.

Karzai has been calling for the end of night raids in Afghanistan, or at least that they be under the control of Afghan forces. There has been pressure between the two countries to have the security deal signed before the NATO summit in Chicago in May, Dellawar told thedailyplanet.com.

“The other significance of the incident is that it happened after these incidents prior to it. The reaction from the urination of U.S. soldiers on the corpses of the Taliban and the Qu’ran burnings incident had just begun to calm down. Now we’re seeing there is a lot of push back from the Afghan people against American forces.” 

The Taliban has released a statement saying there will be reprisals on the American military for this act.

In return Dellawar said she is certain that most NGO’s, international organizations, troops, and advisors are probably on lockdown because they can’t be operating due to the threat to their lives. She cites that six U.S. soldiers were killed following the Qu’ran burning incident. Canada currently has hundreds of advisors in Afghanistan.

The U.S. embassy has asked their personnel to take additional safety measures, CBC reported.

“This gives the Taliban lot’s of oxygen for propaganda because this is such a black-and-white incident of a U.S. soldier going out there and shooting civilians,” said Dellawar.

Obama has since apologized on behalf of the U.S. forces to the Afghan citizens for the incident and "to hold fully accountable anyone responsible," U.S. National Public Radio reported.

“I think American officials have come out in a very timely manner on this incident because they understand the seriousness of it. They condemned it loud and clear and they will conduct an investigation and hold the person accountable. However, it still increases the trust deficit. There’s already a trust deficit between US and Afghan relations but this really makes it more sensitive,” said Dellawar.

Reuters had originally reported the act was done by several soldiers citing witness accounts who said the soldiers were intoxicated while committing this atrocity, but later retracted the statement stating it was the act of a lone soldier.

“After the incident the area was cordoned off. People were not able to go in and verify independently until the soldier was back in the base. It’s still unclear until the investigation has been made public. It looks right now the consensus is it was one soldier but it is still unclear,” said Dellawar.

Whether the incident was the actions of a sole soldier or several, Western forces in the eyes of Afghan citizens are being seen as "miscreants" rather than people attempting to stabilize the war-torn country, said Dellawar.

“Afghans absolutely consider this an act of terrorism when you look at where this incident happened in Kandahar - the birthplace of the Taliban," she said.

"One of the mothers whose two-year-old child was killed in this incident asked, 'Is my two-year-old child a (Taliban fighter)? How do you justify this - a U.S. soldier coming into my house and killing my child, is my two year old a terrorist?’” Dellawar said.