[Afghan News] March 13, 2012

[یاسمینه]

Afghan government team attacked, Taliban fume over massacre
By Rob Taylor and Mirwais Harooni
KABUL (Reuters) - Suspected insurgents opened fire on Tuesday on senior Afghan investigators of the massacre of 16 civilians by a lone U.S. soldier, Afghan officials said, just hours after the Taliban threatened to behead American troops to avenge the killings.
The gunmen shot from long range at two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers, Shah Wali Karzai and Abdul Qayum Karzai, and security officials at the site of the massacre in Kandahar's Panjwai district.
Karzai's brothers were unharmed in the brief battle, which began during meetings with local people at a mosque near Najiban and Alekozai villages, but a soldier was killed and a civilian wounded. The area is a Taliban stronghold and a supply route.
The Taliban had earlier threatened reprisals for the weekend shooting spree, which came weeks after deadly riots across the country over the burning of copies of the Koran by U.S. troops at NATO's main base in the country. That violence led to calls to accelerate a 2014 goal for the exit of most foreign combat troops.
"The Islamic Emirate once again warns the American animals that the mujahideen will avenge them, and with the help of Allah will kill and behead your sadistic murderous soldiers," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement, using the term by which the Islamist group describes itself.
The grim warning, which was unlikely to have any impact on heavily-protected NATO soldiers on the ground, followed the February beheading of four Afghan men by insurgents in a country where such killings are relatively rare.
Tuesday's attack, which was carried out despite tight security around Karzai's siblings, Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa and Tribal Affairs Minister Asadullah Khalid, underscored the insurgents' ability to strike at fledgling Afghan government forces.
The first protests over Sunday's massacre also broke out in eastern city Jalalabad, where around 2,000 demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded President Karzai reject a planned strategic pact with Washington that would allow U.S. advisers and possibly special forces to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
An unnamed U.S. soldier -- reported to have only recently arrived in the country -- is accused of walking off his base in Kandahar province in the middle of the night and gunning down at least 16 villagers, mostly women and children.
A U.S. official said the accused soldier had suffered a traumatic brain injury while on a previous deployment in Iraq.
U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking after a phone call with Karzai -- who is said to be furious over the latest deaths -- said the shootings had only increased his determination to get American troops out of Afghanistan as planned.
However, Obama cautioned there should not be a "rush to the exits" for U.S. forces who have been fighting in Afghanistan since late 2001 and that the drawdown set for the end of 2014 should be done in a responsible way.
The soldier, from a conventional unit, was based at a joint U.S.-Afghan base used by elite U.S. troops under a so-called village support program hailed by NATO as a possible model for U.S. involvement in the country after the 2014 drawdown.
Such bases provide support to local Afghan security units and provide a source of security advice and training, as well as anti-insurgent backup and intelligence.
"CAN NO LONGER BE CALLED ROGUE"
A spokesman for the Kandahar governor Wesa said tribal elders in the area of the massacre would urge against protests and work to dampen public anger if the investigation process was transparent.
"They are supporting the government and will accept any conclusion by the investigators. Today we have meetings with people in the area and all will become clear," spokesman Ahmad Jawid Faisal said.
NATO officials said it was too early to tell if the U.S. soldier would be tried in the United States or Afghanistan if investigators were to find enough evidence to charge him, but he would be under U.S. laws and procedures under an agreement between U.S. and Afghan officials.
Typically, once the initial investigation is completed, prosecutors decide if they have enough evidence to file charges and then could move to an Article 32 or court martial hearing.
NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, Marine General John Allen, has promised a rapid investigation of the massacre, while security was being reviewed at NATO bases across the country.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday that the death penalty could be sought in the U.S. military justice system against the soldier, but portrayed the shooting as an isolated event that would not alter withdrawal plans.
While Afghan MPs in parliament called for a trial under Afghan law, Karzai's office was understood to accept that a trial in a U.S. court would be acceptable provided the process was transparent and open to media.
Afghan MPs protested against the shooting for a second day in the capital Kabul by walking out of a session.
Analysts said the incident would complicate U.S. efforts to reach agreement with the Afghan government on a post-2014 security pact before a May summit in the U.S. city of Chicago on the future size and funding of Afghan security forces.
Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said that despite NATO and White House references to the killings as the work of a "rogue" soldier, similar events had happened before, including a "kill team" apprehended in Kandahar in 2010.
"In the stress of an environment of escalated violence - by both sides, but particularly after Obama's troop surge in early 2009, it looks as if most soldiers simply see Afghanistan as a whole as 'enemy territory' and every Afghan as a potential terrorist. This can no longer be called 'rogue'," Ruttig said.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kimball; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Panetta on Afghanistan massacre: ‘War is hell;’ suspect could face death penalty
By Laura Rozen | The Envoy
The U.S. Army staff sergeant suspected of perpetrating the worst war crime in the ten year history of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan could face the death penalty, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday.
Panetta was speaking to reporters traveling with him en route to Kyrgyzstan, CNN reported.
On Monday, ahead of the trip, Panetta said the U.S. and its NATO allies are being tested by a string of distressing incidents in Afghanistan "almost every other day," but it's important to stick to the strategy the alliance has laid out.
"War is hell," Panetta said, according to CNN. "These kind of events and incidents are going to take place. They've taken place in any war. They're terrible events. This is not the first of those events, and they probably won't be the last."There are currently some 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Jon Allen, the top commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, said Monday, the Associated Press reported. Some 23,000 are due to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September of this year, with remaining international forces leaving Afghanistan at a steady pace by the end of 2014.
Panetta said Tuesday he is waiting for Allen to provide details on his plans to withdraw 23,000 U.S. troops over the next six months, the AP report said.
Both President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron took to print to address the tragedy. "As recent events underscore, this remains a difficult mission," Obama and Cameron wrote in a joint Washington Post op-ed Tuesday, ahead of Cameron's arrival in the United States for his three-day trip. "We honor the profound sacrifices of our forces, and in their name we'll carry on the mission."
The still unidentified U.S. army staff sergeant suspected of massacring 16 men, women and children in Kandahar Province Sunday is reported to have suffered a traumatic brain injury during his third tour of Iraq and to have been having marital problems. He reportedly turned himself in after walking from house to house killing his victims. He has not yet been charged.

U.S. 'heartbroken' over Afghan killings, Obama says
From Sara Sidner, CNN March 13, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan protesters angered by the weekend killings of 16 civilians blocked a major highway Tuesday as U.S. President Barack Obama said U.S. officials were "heartbroken" by the deaths.
A U.S. Army sergeant is accused of killing the Afghan villagers in what top commanders say was a rampage Sunday morning near Kandahar. A protest in Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan, drew hundreds of people Tuesday, with demonstrators blocking the highway to Kabul, provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zaii Abdulzai said.
"We are in the process of trying to reopen," Abdulzai told CNN.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a fresh denunciation of the attack Tuesday. And in Washington, Obama told reporters that "the United States takes this as seriously as if it was our own citizens and our own children who were murdered."
"We are heartbroken at the loss of innocent life," he said. "The killing of innocent civilians is outrageous, and it is unacceptable. It is not who we are as a country and it does not represent our military."
Obama said a U.S. military investigation "will follow the facts wherever they lead us, and we will make sure that anybody who was involved is held fully accountable with the full force of the law."
The pre-dawn rampage left nine children, three women and four men dead in two villages near a combat outpost in Kandahar province, Afghan authorities said. The still-unidentified soldier blamed for the attack turned himself in after the killings and could face the death penalty, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.
The bloodshed is a fresh strain between Washington and Kabul, and Karzai said Tuesday that the killings "caused great pain for the people of Afghanistan." An Afghan official said he heard gunshots and grenades being launched Tuesday while a delegation of top officials visited one of the villages where the shootings took place.
"While we were in the village of Alokozai for a funeral, praying for a martyr killed in the massacre, we heard close-range, small-arms fire, followed by two rocket-propelled grenades," said Haji Agha Lali, a member of Kandahar's provincial council.
"According to my information, two to three Afghan security forces have been injured," he said.
He said high-level Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai's brother, a minister and a deputy minister, were all attending the funeral and may have been the target of the firing.
Another villager in the area said he heard a large explosion followed by gunfire.
Afghanistan's parliament has demanded a public trial for the suspect, and the Afghan Taliban have described U.S. troops as "sick-minded American savages" and vowed to exact revenge. In a new statement Tuesday, the Taliban said the group would take revenge "by killing and beheading Americans anywhere in the country."
The suspect has not been charged. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command is leading the investigation, and U.S. officials say the case will be handled by the American military.
There are fears that Sunday's killings could reignite the anger that led to deadly riots directed at international forces last month over the burning of Qurans by U.S. troops. That was one of a string of incidents involving American forces that have strained ties between the United States and Afghanistan.
U.S. commanders were forced to condemn a video of a squad of Marines urinating on bodies in January, and several soldiers -- from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, like the suspect in Sunday's shooting -- were charged with taking part in a rogue "kill squad."
Sunday's killings have brought a deluge of high-level statements from Washington expressing shock, sadness and insistence that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan would stay on course.
As he set out for a trip to the Middle East on Monday, Panetta said the United States and its NATO allies "seem to get tested almost every other day." But he added, "It is important that, all of us, United States, Afghanistan, the (NATO-led) forces all stick to the strategy that we've laid out."
"War is hell," he said. "These kind of events and incidents are going to take place. They've taken place in any war. They're terrible events. This is not the first of those events, and they probably won't be the last."
The still-unidentified suspect in the attack served three tours of duty in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan, said Gen. John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. A U.S. military official, who asked not to be named because he was talking about an ongoing investigation, said the suspect is an Army staff sergeant who arrived in Afghanistan in January.
During the suspect's last deployment, in 2010, he was riding in a vehicle that rolled over in a wreck, according to a senior Defense Department official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. The sergeant was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury after the wreck but was found fit for duty after treatment, the official said.
CNN's Jethro Mullen and journalist Ruhullah Khapalwak contributed to this report.

Obama Won't Rush Afghan Withdrawal; U.S. Soldier Could Face Death Penalty
March 13, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. President Barack Obama says there will be no "rush for the exits" from Afghanistan despite the killing of 16 Afghan civilians in a rampage by a U.S. soldier on March 11.
Obama said in an interview that it was still necessary to "get out in a responsible way, so they don't end up having to go back in."
The killings have again aggravated U.S.-Afghan ties that were already tense after news emerged that U.S. troops in Afghanistan had burned copies of the Koran.
The U.S. statements came as international forces in Afghanistan braced for possible repercussions.
Underscoring the level of Afghan frustration, suspected militants reportedly fired on an Afghan government delegation that was visiting the site of the recent killings on March 13. Reports say one Afghan soldier was killed, while two other people were injured, including a member of the delegation, which included two of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brothers.
In the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, meanwhile, several hundred university students gathered to demonstrate early on March 13 to express their outrage at the killings. A crowd of some 400 students marched through the city calling for the U.S. soldier to be tried in public in Afghanistan. The group carried an effigy of the U.S. president and banners with anti-U.S. slogans.
'Heartbreaking And Tragic'
Public opinion in both Afghanistan and the United States increasingly opposes the presence of U.S. and other foreign forces in Afghanistan.
Obama called the killings "absolutely heartbreaking and tragic."
But he added that there were thousands of troops, "hundreds of advisers in civilian areas," and "huge amounts of equipment" in Afghanistan and a need to ensure "Afghans can protect their borders to prevent Al-Qaeda from coming back."
Obama emphasized the United States would not be in Afghanistan "longer than we need to be."
The United States and its allies in Afghanistan are starting a draw-down of forces that should see most foreign soldiers out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, at which time Afghan government forces are slated to take over security duties in their country.
Killer Could Face Death Penalty
Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggested on his way to Kyrgyzstan overnight that the soldier responsible for the murders could face the death penalty.
Panetta told journalists traveling with him to Bishkek -- where the subject of a key U.S. military supply facility at Manas and a Kyrgyz threat to evict the international forces there were likely to be discussed -- that the suspect would be tried according to U.S. military law, which allows the death penalty in some cases.
Panetta echoed President Obama's comments, saying the killings must not derail the military mission in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Army staff sergeant is reported to have walked off his base in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar Province early in the morning on March 11 and gone to two nearby villages, breaking into homes and shooting dead the 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children, before trying to burn some of the bodies.
News agencies have quoted unnamed U.S. officials as saying the soldier responsible for the shootings had suffered a brain injury in Iraq in 2010 when the vehicle he was in rolled over, though it was unclear that could have played any role in the killings.
With AFP, AP, and Reuters reporting

Afghan MPs Stage Walk Out to Protest Kandahar Killing
TOLOnews.com Monday, 12 March 2012
Afghanistan's Parliament was suspended on Monday as a sign of protest against the deliberate killing of Afghan civilians by a US soldier on Sunday.
Around 120 members of the House of Representatives walked out of the sitting session on Monday morning in Kabul, after issuing a statement which called for the public trial of the soldier and anyone else involved in the shooting deaths of 16 civilians.
An unidentified US solider is understood to have left his army base and entered at least three homes of Afghan civilians about 500 metres from the base in the Panjwai district while they were still asleep in the early hours of Sunday.
He opened fire, killing 16 people, including nine children, and wounding at least five others.
At this stage, US and Afghan officials are saying the soldier acted alone, although some Afghans are questioning this because some witnesses said they saw more than one soldier or heard more than one gun.
Member of Parliament Mohammad Sarwar Usmani said the parliament was suspended to protest the incident.
"We are expressing our objection to the killing of innocent people in Kandahar by the American soldier," he said. "We want the United States of America to deliver him to justice."
MP Bibe Hamida called for Parliament to "impeach" the Afghan Minister for Defence.
"The Minister of Defense should be asked, why and which of America's soldiers were out of their base? And then, where were the Afghan intelligence personnel? And why was [the solider] let out? With whose permission did he go out? Did only he go out or was someone else also with him?"
MP Muhammad Nayem Lalay Hamidzai weighed in with his comments saying: "We say to Mr President and the Cabinet: Mr Karzai, if the foreigners cannot answer these questions correctly and you cannot stop the night raids, then apologise to the Afghan people and resign, because the Afghan people can no longer wait and sit quietly."
The House of Representatives requested a delegation from Internal Security Commission and the Justice Commission should be sent to determine and clarify what happened in Kandahar.
Meanwhile, the National Coalition Leader for the Council of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah told a press conference in Kabul on Monday that Afghan civilians need clear information about the events.
"We well know that some of the enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan will misuse this tragedy," he said.
"The Afghan government should complete the investigation and should put out enough information for the people to be informed about the persons who committed these crimes and what will happen to them."
The Taliban also issued a statement on Monday vowing to act against the "sick-minded American savages" for "committing a blood-soaked and inhumane crime" in Panjwai.
"A large number from amongst the victims are innocent children, women and the elderly, martyred by the American barbarians who mercilessly robbed them of their precious lives and drenched their hands with their innocent blood," the statement on its website said.
The group said it "gives assurance to [the victims] heirs that it shall take revenge."

China shocked at killing of 16 Afghan civilians by U.S. soldier: FM spokesman
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said here on Tuesday that China was shocked at the killing of 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children and three women, by a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar.
"We extend our condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims," spokesman Liu Weimin told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
He said China, as a friendly neighbor of Afghanistan, sincerely hopes the country can resume peace and stability at an early date.
Another five people were injured in the incident, which occurred early Sunday morning in Zangabad village of Panjwayi district in the province some 450 km south of the capital city of Kabul.
The incident happened in the wake of violent nationwide protests against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which erupted after some copies of the Koran were found burnt at a U.S. base, raising concerns over a new wave of demonstrations in the making.

Afghan youth recounts US soldier's shooting spree
By HEIDI VOGT and MIRWAIS KHAN | Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan man recounted Monday the harrowing tale of how an American soldier on a killing spree burst into his home in the middle of the night, searched the rooms, then dropped to a knee and shot his father in the thigh as he emerged from a bedroom.
The staff sergeant is now in custody, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, most of them children, and then burning many of the bodies. The name of the 38-year-old soldier was not released because it would be "inappropriate" to do so before charges are filed, said Pentagon spokesman George Little.
Sunday's attack in southern Kandahar province comes as anti-Americanism already is boiling over in Afghanistan after U.S. troops burned Qurans last month and a video of Marines urinating on alleged Taliban corpses was posted on the Internet in January.
If the attack unleashes another wave of anti-foreigner hatred, it could threaten the future of the U.S.-led coalition's mission in Afghanistan. The events have also raised doubts among U.S. political figures that the long and costly war is worth the sacrifice in lives and money.
NATO and member countries said the slayings were a blow to the alliance's efforts to cultivate trust but would not affect the timeline to hand over security operations to Afghans by the end of 2014. The White House said U.S. objectives will not change because of the killings.
Outraged Afghan lawmakers called for a suspension of talks on how to formalize a long-term U.S. military presence in the country and demanded that the shooter face trial in an Afghan court.
The soldier was deployed to Afghanistan on Dec. 3 with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord located south of Seattle, according to a congressional source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
He was attached Feb. 1 to the village stability program in Belambai, a half-mile from one of the villages where the attack took place, the source said.
The soldier, who has been in the military for 11 years, served three tours in Iraq and is married with two children, was being held in pretrial confinement in Kandahar by the U.S. military while Army officials review his complete deployment and medical history, according to the source.
Villager Mohammad Zahir told how he watched the soldier enter his house and move through it methodically, checking each room.
"I heard a gunshot. When I came out of my room, somebody entered our house. He was in a NATO forces uniform. I didn't see his face because it was dark," he said.
Zahir, 26, said he quickly went to a part of the house where animals are penned.
"After that, I saw him moving to different areas of the house — like he was searching," he said.
His father, unarmed, then took a few steps out of his bedroom, Zahir recalled.
"He was not holding anything — not even a cup of tea," Zahir said. Then the soldier fired.
"I love my father, but I was sure that if I came out he would shoot me too. So I waited." Zahir said. His mother started pulling his father into the room, and he helped cover his father's bullet wound with a cloth. Zahir's father survived.
After the gunman left, Zahir said he heard more gunshots near the house, and he stayed in hiding for a few minutes to make sure he was gone.
The shooting rampage unfolded in two villages near a U.S. base. An enraged President Hamid Karzai called it "an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians" that cannot be forgiven. He demanded an explanation from Washington for the deaths, which included nine children and three women.
Tensions between Afghanistan and the United States soared last month after word of the Quran burnings got out. President Barack Obama said the burnings were a mistake and apologized.
The strains had appeared to be easing as recently as Friday, when the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding about the transfer of Afghan detainees to Afghan control — a key step toward an eventual strategic partnership to govern U.S. forces in the country after most combat troops leave in 2014.
In Afghanistan's parliament, however, lawmakers called Monday for a halt to talks on the strategic partnership document until it is clear that soldier behind the shooting rampage is facing justice in Afghanistan.
"We said to Karzai: If you sign that document, you are betraying your country," said Shikiba Ashimi, a parliamentarian from Kandahar. "There is no more tolerance for this kind of incident. It is over, over. We want such people on trial inside Afghanistan, in Afghan courts."
"The U.S. should be very careful. It is sabotaging the atmosphere of this strategic partnership," she added.
Currently, American service members in Afghanistan are subject to U.S. military law and proceedings. But the parliamentarians said they want this changed in the document under negotiation. The U.S. is unlikely to agree to that issue, pulling out of Iraq when Baghdad demanded the right to prosecute U.S. forces.
The photographs of dead toddlers wrapped in bloody blankets in Panjwai district started to make the rounds in Afghanistan on Monday. The images were broadcast on Afghan TV stations, and people posted them on social network sites and blogs.
The public response to the shootings so far has been calmer than the six days of riots and attacks after Qurans were burned at Bagram Air Field, leaving 30 people dead including six U.S. soldiers.
The more muted response could be a result of Afghans being used to dealing with civilian casualties over a decade of war. Some said the slayings in Panjwai was more in keeping with Afghans' experience of deadly night raids and airstrikes than the Quran burnings were.
"It's not that these things have an immediate effect, it's that they exacerbate tensions, and I think we're seeing the U.S. and the Afghan governments being really impatient with each other. There's an element of mistrust, and these incidents really exacerbate that," said Kate Clark, of the Kabul-based Afghan Analysts Network.
There's also a question of how the slayings will affect ongoing attempts to negotiate with the Taliban, who may feel that they have a stronger position to appeal to the people. The insurgent group vowed revenge for the attack.
The al-Qaida-linked militant group said in a statement on their website that "sick-minded American savages" committed the "blood-soaked and inhumane crime" in a rural region that is the cradle of the Taliban and where coalition forces have fought for control for years.
U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan have stepped up security following the shootings out of concern about retaliatory attacks. The U.S. Embassy has also warned American citizens in Afghanistan about the possibility of reprisals. As standard practice, the coalition increased security following the shootings out of concern about retaliatory attacks, said German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a coalition spokesman.
The suspect in the shootings began his first deployment to Afghanistan in December, according to a senior U.S. official. However, he had only been assigned to the base in Panjwai about six weeks ago, the congressional source said.
He is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., and was assigned to support a special operations unit of either Green Berets or Navy SEALs engaged in a village stability operation, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still ongoing. Special operations troops pair with local residents chosen by village elders to become essentially a sanctioned, armed neighborhood watch.
The Army Criminal Investigation Division has started an investigation into the incident, said Chris Grey, a spokesman for the division. He declined to give other details to protect the integrity of the investigation.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said the gunman left the base in Panjwai district and walked about one mile (1,800 meters) to Balandi village. Villagers described how they cowered in fear around 3 a.m. as gunshots rang out and the soldier roamed from house to house, firing on those inside. They said he entered three homes in all and set fire to some of the bodies after he killed them.
Eleven of the 12 civilians killed in Balandi were from the same family. The remaining victim was a neighbor.
From Balandi, the gunman walked roughly one mile to the village of Alkozai, which was only about 500 meters from the American military base. There the gunman killed four people in one house and then moved to Zahir's house, where he shot his father in the leg.
The exact circumstances of his arrest were unclear. Some U.S. officials said the soldier returned to base after the shootings and was taken into custody, while later reports suggested he did not turn himself in.
Some Afghan officials and villagers expressed doubt that a single U.S. soldier could have carried out all the killings and burned the bodies afterward. Some villagers also told officials there were multiple soldiers and heard shooting from different directions. But many others said they only saw a single soldier.
Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, another spokesman for the coalition, insisted there was only one gunman.
"There's no indication that there was more than one shooter," he said.
Agha Lalia, member of the Kandahar provincial council who is from Panjwai district, said he spoke to two people who were injured in the shooting at a hospital at Kandahar Air Field, where they are being treated by coalition medical personnel. Both said they only saw one soldier shooting.
___
Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah, Sebastian Abbot and Deb Riechmann in Kabul and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report. Gene Johnson contributed from Seattle.

Despite challenges in Afghanistan, U.S. determined to stick to exit strategy
Washington Post By Karen DeYoung Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Obama administration’s hope for a smooth and successful ending to what it has always considered the “good war” in Afghanistan has become a determined, nose-to-the-grindstone effort to forge ahead toward the exit.
As challenges mount, the administration has concluded that the only viable course is to continue trying to implement the strategy it has already set in motion, with a date certain for combat withdrawal by the end of 2014.
“Our main objective is getting it right,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. “We are assembling the pieces of the endgame.”
In political terms, it is a delicate balance. Polls indicate that the majority of Americans favor a quicker end to the war. But early retreat has its own drawbacks, both politically and for U.S. national security.
“On the merits, the strategic calculus of the war has not changed,” said Stephen D. Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised the Defense Department. But there are “unrealistic assumptions” about the future, even if the endgame proceeds as planned, he said.
Administration officials were tentatively relieved Monday when the day ended without widespread anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan after the shooting deaths of 16 Afghan civilians Sunday, apparently at the hands of a rogue U.S. soldier. Despite angry words from Kabul, U.S. officials expressed cautious confidence that the latest incident would not bring a repeat of last month’s lethal demonstrations after U.S. troops, in what officials deemed an accident, burned copies of the Koran.
The United States moved swiftly after Sunday’s shootings. President Obama made a condolence call to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and promised that justice would be served. Other top U.S. officials also expressed shock and remorse.
“Our point is that it was entirely an exception to any conduct by the U.S. military. . . . It’s a horrific tragedy, and we understand that the Afghan people are going to be outraged,” Rhodes said. “We want to deal with it appropriately, hold anybody accountable to the full extent of the law and continue our relationship with Afghanistan.”
The administration sees three pieces to the endgame there: transitioning security responsibility to Afghan forces, reaching a peace deal with the Taliban and negotiating a political agreement to allow for a long-term U.S. military presence after 2014.
At a NATO summit in May, the United States and its coalition partners expect to firm up plans for the pace of the transition, the timing of the coalition withdrawal and the size of the Afghan force they are willing to train and pay for. Karzai’s government has little ability to fund its own military force.
On the political front, reconciliation talks with the Taliban have reached a preliminary stage but are stalled, awaiting Karzai’s own reconciliation with the government of Qatar, where the talks are supposed to be held. Karzai called his ambassador home from the Persian Gulf state in December, accusing Qatar of interference in internal Afghan affairs.
Progress toward an agreement allowing some U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan long-term was announced Friday, when Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, signed an accord to turn over U.S.-run prisons to the Karzai government.
But that was quickly overshadowed by Sunday’s shootings, and some analysts were less optimistic than the administration that Afghan outrage would dissipate quickly.
“We’re in a really ugly place,” said a former military official with long experience in Iraq and Afghanistan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “Karzai is going to have zero room to make compromises.”
Rather than building their relationship with Afghan troops, U.S. and coalition forces are “going to be operating with one hand on their pistol and looking over their shoulders,” the former official said.
“The plan is to transition the Afghans by putting [U.S. and NATO] trainers among them. That’s now very questionable. It is to reinforce our presence by continuing to develop the Afghan Local Police, and that plank is now in question. And it’s to negotiate a residual force, now equally dubious. What are we left with?”
Biddle said that after 2014, once the ground-level counterinsurgency and development undertaken by U.S. and coalition troops throughout Afghanistan end, the Obama administration “seems to believe they can continue to do leadership strikes” on Taliban commanders, “with drones and raids in perpetuity.”
Calling it an “unreasonable projection,” he added: “Afghans hate that stuff — what does this approach offer them? We’re going to do everything we like, nothing they want.”
The other faulty assumption, Biddle said, is that Congress will continue to fund the Afghan security forces long after the withdrawal. “The war we’ll be handing off is going to be a stalemate,” he said. When the strategy was conceived, “the Taliban were on a slope to extinction. If that were so, [the administration] could go to Congress and say it was only a couple more years and it would be over. That’s not what we’re looking at now.”
The former defense official said that Obama’s initial description of the Iraq invasion orchestrated by President George W. Bush as a “dumb war,” and of Afghanistan as the place where the United States should make a major commitment of resources, “made him look smarter than Bush.”
“Now,” the former official said, “it doesn’t look so smart.”

Afghan students call for punishment of U.S. soldier over civilian killings
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of students came to streets in Jalalabad city on Tuesday and called for punishment of the U.S. soldier involved in a rampage killing over a dozen civilians in southern Kandahar province on Sunday.
The demonstrators demanded the punishment for those soldiers behind civilian killings in Kandahar on Sunday morning, with chanting anti-U.S. slogans and burning an effigy of President Barrack Obama in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, 120 km east of capital Kabul.
After hour of rally on streets, the protesters dispersed peacefully.
A rogue U.S. soldier, according to the locals, came out of his base in Panjwai district of Kandahar early Sunday morning and attacked several houses around, killing 16 people including women and children and wounding nine others.
Meanwhile, Shurai Ulama or religious council of Afghanistan in a statement issued Tuesday condemned the shooting rampage and called for an early public trial of those behind the killing of civilians in Kandahar.
Earlier, President Hamid Karzai and Afghan parliament have denounced the bloody incident and called for bringing justice to those responsible for the callous act.

Afghan killings deepen Karzai's dilemma
Financial Times By Matthew Green GLOBAL INSIGHT March 12, 2012
Kabul - In 10 years of war, Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, has grown wearily accustomed to navigating the fallout from tragic blunders by the US military. But the murder in Kandahar on Sunday of 16 men, women and children, apparently by a US army sergeant, has confronted him with a dilemma of an entirely new magnitude.
The western mission in Afghanistan fears the killings might stir fresh anger following the riots triggered by last month’s discovery of burned Korans at a US base.
For Mr Karzai, the aftermath of the massacre could have more lasting implications. The outrage will make the exhausting task of reconciling the competing demands of his allies and his domestic constituencies doubly daunting.
Even before the massacre, Mr Karzai was torn between two seemingly contradictory imperatives: cementing long-term US military support for his government and convincing the Taliban that he is serious about starting talks to end the war.
Mr Karzai knows that he needs to extract a decade-long troop commitment from Washington to ensure the fragile Afghan state can survive after most foreign forces withdraw by the end of 2014.
Yet this goal would seem at odds with his attempts to start negotiations with the Taliban, who have pledged to fight until the last Nato soldier is gone.
Fury at the Kandahar killings will make Mr Karzai’s dilemma only sharper. Hawks in the Taliban leadership will no doubt hope the anti-foreign sentiment stoked by the murder spree and the Koran burnings may snowball into a wider rejection of the Nato presence, reducing their incentive to negotiate.
Mr Karzai’s fraught attempts to guarantee US support until 2024 by signing a “strategic partnership agreement” may also suffer.
Some Afghan MPs are railing against the plan, fearing it will allow US troops to commit atrocities with impunity.
Negotiations over the terms of the pact have already dragged on for more than a year, partly due to Mr Karzai’s insistence that the US should stop sending its soldiers on night raids to capture insurgents.
The Pentagon sees the operations as its most effective weapon against the Taliban – but Mr Karzai’s Pashtun community regards them as a violation. Anger at the weekend murders in Pashtun homes will merely reinforce calls for Mr Karzai to stand firm and insist that only Afghans – not foreigners – are allowed to conduct the missions.
The US wants to finalise the broader security deal with Afghanistan before a Nato summit in Chicago in May. Washington hopes that a document laying out its own, lasting commitment to Afghanistan will discourage allies from bowing to pressure from voters to cut their losses and run.
Mr Karzai and the US managed to overcome one sticking point last week when they reached a compromise on the handover of military prisons to Afghan control. But the atrocity allegedly committed by the US sergeant is certain to mean that talks on the night raids – due to start soon – will be more emotionally charged.
What if the deal is not inked before the Nato summit? European allies, who are desperate to wind down their role in Afghanistan, might seize on Mr Karzai’s failure to strike a deal with its biggest ally to justify back-sliding on pledges to remain engaged. France announced plans to withdraw early from Afghanistan this year after an Afghan soldier killed four of its troops.
European ardour for the Afghan cause is fading. The murders, coupled with video footage of US marines desecrating the bodies of Taliban insurgents, and the convictions of four US soldiers for killing three Afghan civilians for sport in 2010, have shaped perceptions of an increasingly dirty war.
It is unfortunate for Washington that the crime eclipsed tentative signs that peace talks might yet be feasible. Afghan officials flew to Guantánamo Bay last week to speak to five Taliban prisoners whom the US is considering shifting to house arrest in Qatar as a confidence-building measure.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the prisoners said they would be delighted to move to the Gulf state, where the Taliban plans to open an “office” to facilitate talks. Mr Karzai and his allies must hope that ultimately the news flow from Afghanistan will be driven by progress towards negotiations, and not massacres.

Massacre makes Obama "more determined" to leave Afghanistan
Reuters By Caren Bohan and Ahmad Nadem Tue Mar 13, 2012
WASHINGTON/KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - President Barack Obama said on Monday the massacre of 16 villagers by a U.S. soldier increases his determination to get American troops out of Afghanistan, while a U.S. official said the accused staff sergeant previously had suffered traumatic brain injury.
Sunday's shootings triggered angry calls from Afghans for an immediate American exit. Obama said there should not be a "rush to the exits" for U.S. forces who have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001 and that the drawdown must be carried out in a responsible way.
The accused U.S. Army staff sergeant walked off his base in the southern province of Kandahar in the middle of night and gunned down at least 16 villagers, mostly women and children.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the death penalty could be sought in the U.S. military justice system against the soldier, whose name has not been publicly disclosed.
Referring to Sunday's massacre, Obama said in an interview with KDKA, a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh: "It makes me more determined to make sure we're getting our troops home."
"It's time. It's been a decade, and, frankly, now that we've gotten (Osama) bin Laden, now that we've weakened al Qaeda, we're in a stronger position to transition than we would have been two or three years ago," Obama added, referring to the al Qaeda leader killed by U.S. forces last year in Pakistan.
The Army staff sergeant accused in the incident was treated for traumatic brain injury suffered in a vehicle rollover in 2010 during a previous deployment in Iraq, a U.S. official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was premature to state whether there was any link between the brain injury and Sunday's shootings.
Panetta portrayed the shooting as an isolated event that would not alter plans for a gradual, orderly withdrawal of American combat forces by the end of 2014.
"War is hell. These kinds of events and incidents are going to take place, they've taken place in any war. They're terrible events. And this is not the first of those events, and it probably won't be the last," the U.S. defense secretary told reporters on a flight to Kyrgyzstan.
"But we cannot allow these events to undermine our strategy or the mission that we're involved in."
MY LAI COMPARISONS
Obama was pressed in another separate interview with WFTV, an ABC affiliate in Orlando, on whether there were parallels between the killing of 16 Afghan villagers and the notorious 1968 My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War.
"It's not comparable," Obama said.
"It appeared you had a lone gunman who acted on his own," he said of the Afghanistan incident. "In no way is this representative of the enormous sacrifices that our men and women have made in Afghanistan."
Panetta said the goal was to try the case within the U.S. military justice system. Asked whether the death penalty could be considered, Panetta replied: "My understanding is that in these instances that could be a consideration."
Obama and America's NATO partners intend to pull most of their troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, leaving an inexperienced local army in charge. Officials in Washington denied that the killings might alter that schedule.
"I do not believe this incident will change the timetable of a strategy that was designed and is being implemented in a way to allow for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, to allow for their transfer of lead security authority over to the Afghans," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
Just days before Sunday's attack, Kabul and Washington had made significant progress in negotiations on a strategic partnership agreement that would allow American advisers and special forces to stay in Afghanistan after most foreign combat troops leave at the end of 2014.
But securing a full deal may be far more difficult now. "This could delay the signing of the Strategic Partnership Agreement," an Afghan government official told Reuters.
The attack was the latest incident to ignite Afghan anger at the United States, coming on the heels of U.S. soldiers' burning of copies of the Koran on a NATO base last month, and other incidents that have intensified America's perception problem in Afghanistan.
Panetta, answering questions for the first time about the shooting rampage, said U.S. officials were still uncertain about the motives behind it.
The accused soldier was part of the 2-3 Infantry, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, from the Lewis-McChord base in Washington state. After serving three tours in Iraq, he arrived in Afghanistan in December and has been at the Belambai base since February 1.
Based on preliminary findings of a U.S. investigation into the incident, Panetta gave this account of the soldier's actions: "He went out in the early morning and went to these homes and fired on these families. And then at some point after that, came back to the forward operating base and basically turned himself in, told individuals what had happened."
U.S. officials, who have rushed to distance the shootings from the efforts of the 90,000-strong U.S. force that over the past year has beaten the Taliban back from much of southern Afghanistan, say an investigation was under way but did not know when it would conclude.
Afghanistan's parliament condemned the killings, saying Afghans had run out of patience with the actions of foreign forces and the lack of oversight. Civilian deaths have long been one of the main sources of tension between Kabul and Washington.
'LOST EVERYTHING'
"We have benefited little from the foreign troops here but lost everything - our lives, dignity and our country to them," said Haji Najiq, a Kandahar shop owner.
"The explanation or apologies will not bring back the dead. It is better for them to leave us alone and let us live in peace."
Fury over the killing spree, which brought demands that the United States withdraw earlier than scheduled, could be exploited by the Taliban to gain new recruits.
Anti-Americanism, which boiled over after the Koran-burning incident, might deepen after the Kandahar carnage.
"The Americans said they will leave in 2014. They should leave now so we can live in peace," said Mohammad Fahim, 19, a university student. "Even if the Taliban return to power our elders can work things out with them. The Americans are disrespectful."
The civilian deaths may also force Afghan President Hamid Karzai to harden his stance in the partnership talks to appease a public already critical of his government's performance.
"The Americans are not here to assist us they are here to kill us," said Najibullah, 33, a house painter in Kabul.
"I hate the Americans and I hate anyone who loves them, so I hope there is no long-term partnership between our countries."
The partnership agreement, which Washington and Kabul have been discussing for more than a year, is expected to be a framework for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave at the end of 2014.
The Kandahar violence came just days after the United States and Afghanistan signed a deal on the gradual transfer of a major U.S.-run detention centre to Afghan authorities, overcoming one of the main sticking points in the partnership negotiations.
Afghanistan wants a timeline to take over detention centres and for the United States and NATO to agree to end night raids on Afghan homes as preconditions for signing the pact.
"Incidents such as this underscore the fact that after 10 years of war, it is time to bring our troops home as soon as we responsibly can," said U.S. Representative Adam Smith, whose congressional district includes the home base of the soldier accused in the massacre.
U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the Taliban rulers who had harboured the al Qaeda network responsible for the September 11 attacks of the United States. Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban.
The cost of the war has already exceeded $500 billion and more than 1,900 U.S. troops have been killed, with the total number of foreign troops killed approaching 3,000.
(Additional reporting by Ahmad Haroon ̀in KANDAHAR, Hamid Shalizi and Mirwais Harooni in KABUL; Susan Cornwell, Missy Ryan, Alister Bull, Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON; Michelle Nicols, Louis Charbonneau and Emily Flitter in NEW YORK; Editing by Will Dunham)

Banker Says 'Billions' In Cash Leaving Afghanistan
March 13, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A senior Afghan banking official says wealthy Afghans are carrying an estimated $8 billion -- almost double the state budget -- in cash out of the country each year.
Deputy central bank governor Khan Afzal Hadawal told Reuters news agency that confidence in the Afghan economy, amid the country's continuing violence and instability, is so eroded that cash has been leaving Afghanistan in suitcases and carry-on bags and taken to safe havens in Dubai and elsewhere.
The report says some former government officials have been linked to carrying millions in cash out of the country.
Hadawal said the outflows, and an expected sharp drop in foreign aid, could take a further heavy toll on the Afghan economy.
U.S. aid to Afghanistan fell from $4.1 billion in 2010 to $2.5 billion in 2011.
Based on Reuters reporting

The struggle for transition in Afghanistan's troubled south
By Jack Kimball
NOORZAI BAZAAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - In the sun-baked centre of Afghanistan's Helmand province, once known as a fearsome Taliban stronghold, gunfire cracks over a British convoy as insurgents try to show they are still a force to be reckoned with.
With Western troops in the waning stages of a war in its eleventh year, Helmand mirrors many other troubled pockets of the country where the Taliban have been bruised but not defeated by a surge in U.S. troops.
The Taliban could simply be waiting out the planned pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014, some experts say.
As a gunbattle rages nearby, Afghan man Juma Khan, wearing a traditional hat and with hennaed-dyed red hair, crouches in the corner of his house with his family.
"You can see how the security situation is right now. Sometimes there's shooting, sometimes not," the unemployed 29-year-old said through a NATO interpreter last week.
"What should we do? The insurgents will kill us. Security is because of the foreign troops."
A series of incidents over the past month including the burning of Korans in a NATO base and the killing of 16 villagers by a U.S. soldier has stirred debate about the withdrawal's timetable, with some in the West asking for a faster pullout.
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the weekend massacre of villagers in Kandahar province increased his determination to get American troops out of Afghanistan.
But here in Helmand - the country's main poppy province - the fear is that the gains of the last few years could be at risk and that the fledgling Afghan national army may struggle to take over security responsibilities.
Violence remains widespread in Helmand and in neighboring Kandahar where Afghan government influence is remote and poppy rife. Six British soldiers were killed on the border of the two provinces last week.
"My opinion is that it'd be better if (foreign troops) stayed. Afghanistan is in need of friends to assist. For 30 years, Afghanistan has been at war and you don't resolve that to peace overnight," Brigadier Sheren Shah of the Afghan national army told Reuters through a British interpreter last week.
Shah said his big worry was that there would not be enough money for training of soldiers and that operations could suffer from a lack of air support and armored vehicles, once foreign troops leave.
SUCCESS STORY
The three districts in Helmand under British oversight have been held up as a security success story after an influx of foreign troops into the area.
Britain moved into Helmand in 2006 where they were involved in heavy fighting, but the tide began to turn after a surge of soldiers beat back insurgents to a few remaining pockets.
In the three districts, violence has dropped up to 45 percent in the last year, according to Brigadier Patrick Sanders, commander of British forces in Helmand.
"What they're going to be forced to focus their efforts on is rather more terrorist-style tactics so close quarter assassinations, IED (improvised explosive device) spectaculars," Sanders told Reuters last week at a main base in the area.
There are still 1,000 to 1,100 Taliban fighters in the three districts, with poppy farms a key source of funding for them, according to Afghan commanders.
In small square plots, young, green poppy plants sprout out of the ground in a sparsely-populated, arid area of Nad Ali, remote from the main source of water and from where many Afghans in the region live.
Taliban-led militants are believed to make $100-to-$400 million a year from drug production and trafficking throughout the country, fuelling insecurity.
"Up to 2014, security will be fine and we'll get training. After 2014, I don't know if security will be good or bad, only God knows that," fruit-seller-turned police officer Mohmad Aslam said on patrol with British forces in Helmand.
Poppy farmers in the area complain they are stuck in the middle of the war and can barely make ends meet.
"Now security is not good. The Taliban come in and take mobile phones from everyone ... We worry a lot about the insurgents. Sometimes they come and want food," Abdel Hadi, a recently married 25-year-old, said in an area known as the "Dashte" in Pashtu, meaning desert.
"At night, we can't move through our land because of insurgents," the poppy farmer said.
(Reporting by Jack Kimball; Editing by Rob Taylor and Sanjeev Miglani)
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A deal with the Taliban is the only way out
Financial Times By Ahmed Rashid Opinion March 12, 2012
In an army of 150,000 US and Nato soldiers in Afghanistan, one rogue soldier who massacres 16 civilians, including nine children, does not necessarily mean that the discipline and morale of the whole force is breaking down. However, when the spate of recent incidents is put together – US soldiers burning copies of the Koran, footage apparently showing US marines urinating on bodies of dead Taliban fighters and a series of accidental killings of civilians during US attacks on the Taliban – the situation looks far more grim. There can be no doubt that the western forces in Afghanistan are facing a crisis of confidence, across the Muslim world and also in their home countries.
The Afghan people are exhausted by a war that has gone on in one form or other since 1979, when most US soldiers now in Afghanistan were not even born. Increasing numbers of Afghans would agree with what the Taliban have been arguing for almost a decade: that the western presence in Afghanistan is prolonging the war, causing misery and bloodshed. The hundreds of civilians killed already this year across the country are almost forgotten now in the aftermath of the killing of children by a farengi, or foreigner.
Moreover, faced with an increasingly corrupt and incompetent government, Afghans are seeing fewer improvements on the ground. So-called “nation building” has ground to a halt, simple justice and rule of law is unobtainable and a third of the population is suffering from malnutrition. The people blame not just the Americans but equally Hamid Karzai and his inner circle, which gives him conflicting and contradictory advice, leading him to flip and flop on policy issues.
The Afghan president’s desire to seek a strategic partnership agreement with the US is becoming more and more unacceptable to the Afghan people. At the same time he also wants to make peace with the Taliban, but they have no desire for a pact with Washington. His dilemma, which he still refuses to understand, is that he can either ask for a long-term US presence or peace with the Taliban, but not both.
America is clearly also exhausted by the two wars it has waged in Iraq and Afghanistan – the latter becoming the longest war in US history. Officers and soldiers have done several tours of duty in both countries, while the wars themselves have been virtually ignored at home. Neither war has yielded the dividends that Washington once hoped for. Osama bin Laden may be dead but al-Qaeda’s beliefs have spread their net into many more countries since 2001, while the Taliban have proved to be far more resilient than western forces could conceive of a few years ago.
Yet the US military high command has been lobbying in Washington, insisting that some kind of victory in Afghanistan is still possible if only President Barack Obama would not withdraw so many troops so soon and if only Congress would keep the funding flowing. US generals have done their best to delay and undermine the still-weak hand played by the State Department in its efforts to get talks with the Taliban going. But now even the Republicans, many of whom have supported the military and condemned Mr Obama for daring to open talks with the Taliban, appear to be at a loss as to how to move forwards in Afghanistan.
After the spate of incidents this year, there should be no doubt in Washington that seeking a negotiated settlement to end the war with the Taliban as quickly as possible is the only way out. Mr Obama has to put his weight behind this strategy to ensure an orderly withdrawal and to give the Afghan people the chance of an end to this war. A power-sharing formula with the Taliban, which now appears increasingly unavoidable, and an accord with neighbouring states to limit their interference, will be key.
In 1989 it was America and Pakistan who refused to allow a political solution to end the fighting because they wanted not just the Soviets gone but also Moscow’s Afghan protégées led by Mohammad Najibullah. Instead he hung on for three years, resulting in a civil war. America cannot again leave Afghanistan with a civil war as its bequest to the Afghans. Washington, and Nato, must seek an end to the war before withdrawing their forces. Despite the tragic death of so many innocent children, this is still possible if there is a concerted diplomatic and political push.
The writer is author of several books about Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, most recently ‘Descent into Chaos’
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British PM: Afghanistan Mission Must Continue
VOA News March 12, 2012 Selah Hennessy
London - British Prime Minister David Cameron has described the alleged killing of Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier as “absolutely dreadful.” Speaking Monday, Mr. Cameron said the incident will have an impact but that Britain’s aims in Afghanistan remain the same.
Mr. Cameron was speaking at a press conference Monday, one day after a U.S. soldier allegedly killed 16 civilians during a shooting spree.
Mr. Cameron said the killings must not derail the work that international forces are doing in Afghanistan.
“It is worth remembering why we are in Afghanistan," Cameron said. "We're there to train up the Afghan army and police so that that country is able to look after its own security and make sure that country isn't a haven for terrorists without having foreign troops on its soil. That's what we all dearly want."
But some British politicians raised questions both about Britain’s role in what one lawmaker described an “unwinnable war” and about the care taken over soldiers’ mental stability.
In Afghanistan, the anger has been widespread. Afghan lawmakers said they have “run out of patience” with international troops and the Taliban vowed in an online statement to avenge Sunday’s deaths.
Analysts say reprisal attacks are likely - and that U.S. troops are unlikely to be the only target.
David Livingstone is an expert in international security at the London-based research group Chatham House.
"Foreign armies, they will be grouped as one," Livingstone said. "And, of course, in Helmand Province you have got some of the most fervent and some of the most dangerous of Taliban gangs. You would expect to see reprisals levied at whomever, whichever nations are there under the NATO banner."
Prime Minister Cameron is due to visit the United States this week for talks with President Barack Obama.
Livingstone says Afghanistan will be their number one discussion point. "I think they see very much eye to eye," he said. "The mission is very, very tight between the two nations under the banner of NATO, and I don't see any differences between them either politically, operationally, or tactically on the Afghan question in itself."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Afghanistan Monday to visit German troops, spoke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the telephone and expressed her condolences.

US ambassador: Taliban could 'regenerate' if troops withdraw from Afghanistan now
FoxNews.com By Justin Fishel March 12, 2012
As shocking details continue to emerge from the shooting deaths in Afghanistan last weekend said to have been carried out by a rouge U.S. soldier, the top American diplomat in the region said he understands public fatigue with the war after more than a decade, but also stressed the need to stay the course.
"I understand that people are tired," U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker told Fox News in an exclusive interview Monday.
"I'm tired too," he said. "I've been deployed to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq going on seven years now since 9/11. So, believe me, I understand what feeling tired means."
A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows 60 percent of Americans surveyed think the Afghan war is not worth it, while 54 percent want U.S. troops to come home.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, U.S. presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was sympathetic to Americans with that view. "I think it's very likely that we have lost, tragically lost the lives and suffered injuries to a considerable number of young Americans on a mission that we're going to discover is not doable," Gingrich said.
But Ambassador Crocker says leaving now would be disastrous.
"These are the stakes if we decide that we are tired of it, don't want to do it anymore," Crocker said. "Well, the Taliban isn't that tired and Al Qaeda, badly damaged, would be able to regenerate if the Taliban took the country over again."
Crocker called that scenario another “pre-9/11 situation."
Meanwhile, Fox News has learned that the alleged shooter, who officials say will be charged in a military court with murdering at least 16 Afghan civilians, suffered from a traumatic brain injury during one his three previous deployments in Iraq.
Officials also say the alleged shooter was suffering from "family issues," possibly with his wife.
His youngest victim was just two years old. Eyewitnesses said the shooter burned the bodies before he left, evidence of which can be viewed in video footage from the scene.
The Army is withholding the identity of the staff sergeant, an Army sniper who has two children of his own and is based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
President Obama in an interview Monday said he is still determined to bring troops home as planned.

Events in Afghanistan Could Shape 2012 Race
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR The New York Times March 13, 2012, 7:59 am
So much about the 2012 presidential election is predictable: it will be about gas prices and health care; the deficit, spending and jobs; cultural issues and gender politics; immigration and federal taxes.
But the weekend news that an Army sergeant in Afghanistan had gone on a rampage, killing women and children in an Afghan village, is a stark reminder that dramatic national security moments have the potential to transform the political conversation at home in ways that are difficult to predict and hard to measure.
Within hours of the massacre, initial reports on Sunday reached the campaign trail, prompting remarks from Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum about the dangers of America’s ongoing involvement in the decade-long war in that country. A more cautious statement from Mitt Romney, expressing outrage at the incident, came a day later.
On Monday, the White House released a photo of a grim-faced President Obama sitting in his car and talking by phone to Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. That image was shown throughout the day on cable TV networks as the impact of the incident began to reverberate through Afghanistan.
Administration officials are clearly bracing for angry repercussions in that country, where the news adds to tensions that remain high from the accidental burning of Korans several weeks ago.
But how much impact will the news have on the political battle for the White House?
With eight months before the November election, it seems unlikely that the brutal incident itself will emerge as a significant moment in the campaign. At the White House daily briefing on Monday, Jay Carney, the press secretary, fielded questions about rising gas prices before getting to an extended discussion about the deaths in Afghanistan.
But had the incident happened much closer to Election Day, history suggests it might have had more of an impact.
* In 2004, Osama bin Laden released a provocative recording just days before the election pitting President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee. Bin Laden bragged about the Sept. 11 attacks and condemned Mr. Bush and America.
Mr. Bush’s stern response — delivered on a tarmac with Air Force One in the background — helped remind voters of the dangers of terrorism and of the weighty office that he occupied. Aides to the president said later that tracking polls ticked higher after the video was released, and that it may have helped Mr. Bush win.
* Twelve years earlier, within a week before the 1992 election, the special prosecutor in the Iran-contra case indicted Caspar W. Weinberger, the former defense secretary, charging him with lying to Congress about the arms-for-hostages deal during the Reagan administration. Aides to President George H.W. Bush believed that the story helped his Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton, cement his critiques about the incumbent president.
* By contrast, striking events that took place months before Election Day have fizzled as campaign issues. In 2008, Senator John McCain tried to use the Russian invasion of parts of Georgia as a campaign issue. But the August events got lost six weeks later amid the global economic collapse.
Still, the massacre in Afghanistan could become important in November if it marks the escalation of a longer spiral in that country that makes the situation there worse by the time voters head to the polls.
That’s what happened in 1980, when the Iran hostage crisis developed from a single incident almost exactly a year before the election — the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran — into a year-long embarrassment for President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
Mr. Carter’s decision to order a rescue attempt in April 1980 failed, causing more political damage. But it was the continuing presence of the hostages in the days leading up to the election that helped Ronald Reagan’s efforts to oust Mr. Carter from the White House.
For Mr. Obama, who came into office arguing that Afghanistan was the “right war” and vowing to bring the conflict in Iraq to an end, a deteriorating conflict in Afghanistan could be especially dangerous to his hopes for reelection.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that more than 50 percent of Americans believe troops should be withdrawn more quickly. And 60 percent said the war that Mr. Obama supported and expanded during his presidency was not worth the human toll or the financial cost.
Mr. Romney, in particular, has criticized Mr. Obama’s policies in Afghanistan, saying that the administration is withdrawing troops too quickly from the country in advance of an agreement to transition to an Afghan-led effort in 2014.
At a debate in January in Tampa, Mr. Romney said Mr. Obama had erred by “number one, announcing a withdrawal date for our troops, number two drawing down our surge troops faster than the time the commanders on the ground was necessary.” He added that “he has failed in — in executing a policy in Afghanistan that would optimize our prospects of success.”
But the Afghanistan debate is also exposing divisions within the Republican Party that could hurt their chances of turning it into an election year issue.
Perhaps in response to the public discontent, some Republicans are now expressing doubts about the long-term prospects in Afghanistan that sound remarkably similar to some of those voiced by Democrats.
Ron Paul has long been the most vocal Republican candidate arguing for a complete withdrawal from the country. (Jon M. Huntsman Jr. also expressed an urgency to have America end its involvement there.) But in the last several days, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum have sounded the alarm.
Mr. Gingrich predicted on Fox News Sunday that the situation in Afghanistan is “going to get substantially worse, not better. And I think that we are risking young men and women in a mission that may frankly not be doable.”
Mr. Santorum expressed similar doubts on Sunday, saying that the killing of the Afghan civilians should prompt a reassessment of the mission in the country.
“Given all of these additional problems, we have to either make the decision to make a full commitment, which this president has not done, or we have to decide to get out and probably get out sooner given the president’s decision to get out in 2014,” Mr. Santorum said on NBC’s “Today Show” program.
On Monday, Mr. Santorum returned to his criticism of Mr. Obama for setting a date for withdrawal of American troops, saying “the president putting a timeline in place has made a very winnable operation very, very difficult. It continues to unravel because the president has given something to the enemy that we should have been able to deny them, which is hope.”
It’s unclear how much the Afghanistan situation will be front-and-center by November, when most voters will likely be judging the candidates by their positions on the economy. But one thing is clear: incidents like the one over the weekend are likely to divert the conversation for a time, and maybe longer.

Support for Afghan Fight Drops Among G.O.P. Candidates
New York Times By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. March 12, 2012
Amid a series of bloody and troubling episodes in Afghanistan that have inflamed Afghan opinion against the United States, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are now calling for a reassessment of American policy there — suggesting that it may be time to withdraw troops sooner than the Obama administration has planned.
Their views echo recent polls that show public support for the Afghan war has fallen sharply among voters of all parties.
In an interview Monday on NBC’s “Today” show, Mr. Santorum, long among the most hawkish Republican candidates on Afghanistan, signaled that it was time to review America’s options. One option, he said, was to leave even sooner than called for in the timeline laid out by the Obama administration, which would turn over security to Afghan forces by 2014 and end the leading combat role for American troops by next year.
“We have to either make the decision to make a full commitment, which this president has not done, or we have to decide to get out, and probably get out sooner,” Mr. Santorum said.
One day earlier, Mr. Gingrich, who had previously voiced concern over the direction of the Afghan war, declared on “Face the Nation” that it was time to leave the country.
“We need to understand that our being in the middle of countries like Afghanistan is probably counterproductive,” Mr. Gingrich said. “We’re not prepared to be ruthless enough to force them to change. And yet we are clearly an alien presence.”
He added on “Fox News Sunday” that he feared the mission was one “that we’re going to discover is not doable.”
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who has long supported a noninterventionist foreign policy, has long called for a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
The comments by Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum came after news that a United States Army sergeant was suspected of walking off his base in southern Afghanistan and killing 16 Afghan civilians, many of them children.
At a campaign appearance in Mississippi, Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, said the United States should apologize if it is shown that these killings were “a deliberate act.”
In another appearance on Monday, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Mr. Santorum also said that he is “the only candidate in this race that has any experience as commander in chief.” Aides later said he misspoke.
Despite their most recent comments, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich have both criticized the withdrawal timetable laid out by Mr. Obama. So, too, has Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
Mr. Romney has said he would rely on advice from military commanders for his Afghanistan policy, adding last summer that it was “time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, as soon as our generals think it’s O.K.” He has also said he would not negotiate with the Taliban.
“He’s definitely given himself wiggle room,” Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University, said of Mr. Romney’s policy toward the country.
What’s more clear, Mr. Drezner added, is growing public opposition to a conflict some once described as “the good war.”
“There’s no question that there has been a rising tide of, ‘Why are we in this conflict now,’ ” he said. “And so as much as Republicans might want to sound hawkish, it’s tough to sound hawkish on a conflict where your rationale for being there has evaporated.”
“That said,” he added, “remember that these guys are fighting for hard-core G.O.P. primary voters,” some of whom believe the United States should fight until victory.
But even within the Republican Party, the numbers of such voters may be dwindling: Republicans are now evenly split over whether the war in Afghanistan has been “worth fighting,” according to a new poll by ABC News and The Washington Post. That is the least amount of support over the past five years the question has been asked. In February 2007, 85 percent of Republicans responded yes to the same question.
Over all, 60 percent of those surveyed this month said the war has not been worth fighting. Only 28 percent of Democrats — and 33 percent of independents — believe the war has been worth fighting.
The poll was conducted before news of the killings in southern Afghanistan, but after the Koran-burning episode last month that led to huge protests and was blamed for attacks that led to the deaths of several American service members.

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