Afghans Riot After Crash Of Humvees
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan – A fatal traffic accident involving American troops yesterday sparked Kabul’s worst riots since the fall of the Taliban, with thousands of protesters looting shops and chanting “Death to America.”
Up to 14 people were killed and 142 injured in an outburst of rage against the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan and at President Karzai, their ally.
Afghan soldiers and NATO peacekeeping forces in tanks were deployed across the city as demonstrators marched on the presidential palace and rioters smashed police guard boxes. Police cars were set alight and buildings ransacked, including the compound of Care International, the aid group.
The violence erupted in the northern suburbs before spreading into the center and other areas used by foreigners, including the diplomatic quarter and American and NATO bases.
The mayhem had its beginnings in a relatively ordinary road accident – witness claimed that three American Humvees ran into a rush-hour traffic jam, hitting several civilian cars.
However, a U.S. Army spokesman later said that a large cargo truck in a coalition convoy had suffered a mechanical failure, hitting up to 12 civilian vehicles
The speed with which the protests escalated into a citywide riot betrayed the underlying hostility to foreign troops and Mr. Karzai’s brittle hold on power. “We will recognize as the enemy of Afghanistan these people who do these things,” he said in a televised address last night. “You should stand up against these agitators and not let them destroy our country again. “Yesterday’s violence exposed how tenuous this authority is even on his own doorstep.
American-led coalition forces said at least one person was killed and six injured in the original crash, although police said at least three people died and 16 were injured. A Kabul police chief, Sher Shah Usafi, said one other person was killed when American troops fired into a crowd of stone-throwing protesters soon after the accident. A military spokesman, Colonel Thomas Collins, confirmed there was gunfire at the scene but said coalition personnel in one vehicle only fired over the crowd.
