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Taliban vow revenge for US soldier’s rampage
Fearing reprisals, US puts troops on high alert
Obama calls up Karzai, promises quick probe
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3 dead as Israeli jets pound Gaza
Merkel on Afghan trip, questions German pullout
UK’s first euthanasia case gets high court go-ahead
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Taliban vow revenge for US soldier’s rampage Kabul, March 12 The Taliban would “take revenge from the invaders and the savage murderers for every single martyr”, they said in a statement on their website. The US soldier walked off his base and broke into the homes of villagers in Kandahar province’s Panjwayi district before dawn yesterday, killing 16 people, including women and children. A soldier has been detained and the United States has offered condolences to the families and pledged that action will be taken against anyone found guilty of the massacre. Kandahar is considered the birthplace of the Taliban. “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 Taliban said. “The American ‘terrorists’ want to come up with an excuse for the perpetrator of this inhumane crime by claiming that this immoral culprit was mentally ill. “If the perpetrators of this massacre were in fact mentally ill then this testifies to yet another moral transgression by the American military because they are arming lunatics in Afghanistan who turn their weapons against the defenceless Afghans without giving a second thought.”
AFP
Killing of civilians will ‘embolden’ Taliban
New York: Concerned over the killing of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier, an incident coming days after copies of the Quran were burnt, American officials feel such episodes will "embolden" the Taliban and create an "instant windfall" for the group. — PTI
Fearing reprisals, US puts troops on high alert
London: Fearing reprisals, US troops in Afghanistan have been placed on high alert following the killings of Afghan civilians by a wayward American soldier, as the Afghan parliament demanded that the culprit be put on public trial.
The joint US-NATO command and the US embassy in Kabul has issued emergency warnings, alerting US and other foreign citizens to be careful, the BBC reported. The embassy put an emergency statement on its website, saying the “the US Embassy in Kabul alerts US citizens in Afghanistan that as a result of a tragic shooting incident in Kandahar province involving a US service member, there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days, especially in the eastern and southern provinces.” The officials have been warned to restrict their moments especially in Kandahar as Afghan politicians from Kandahar have expressed scepticism that the US soldier acted alone. —
PTI
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Obama calls up Karzai, promises quick probe Washington, March 12 Obama, who telephoned Karzai last night, “extended his condolences to the people of Afghanistan, and made clear his administration’s commitment to establish the facts as quickly as possible and to hold fully accountable anyone responsible,” the White House said in a statement. Obama called Karzai to express his “shock and sadness” over the killing of 16 civilians, mostly women and children. He “reaffirmed our deep respect for the Afghan people and the bonds between our two countries,” the statement said. — PTI
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3 dead as Israeli jets pound Gaza Gaza City, March 12 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue targeting rocket-firing militants for “as long as necessary” and since midnight, the air force has carried out at least eight air strikes, leaving three dead and 41 wounded, Palestinian medical sources said. Two of the victims were killed shortly after dawn in separate raids around the southern city of Khan Yunis, which also left two injured. And shortly afterwards, a 15-year-old boy was killed and six other school children injured in what medics said was another air strike near the northern town of Beit Lahiya. The killings brought to 21 the death toll from a weekend of tit-for-tat violence that began with Israel’s killing of a senior militant on Friday afternoon. It follows a familiar pattern in which militants launch rocket attacks and Israel carries out air raids in the Hamas-controlled enclave. But the bloodshed has usually ended after a few days with an informal truce. Gaza’s Hamas leadership, whose own cadres have kept out of the fighting, said on Sunday that neighbouring Egypt was working to stop the violence and consulting with other militants. —
Agencies
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Merkel on Afghan trip, questions German pullout Kabul, March 12 In a phone call to President Hamid Karzai from the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, Merkel expressed “her deepest condolences” over the killings of the civilians in the southern province of Kandahar, Karzai’s spokesman said. The point has not yet been reached where Germany can say “we can pull out today”, Merkel said as she visited troops stationed in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north of Afghanistan. “And therefore, I can also not say that we will manage that by 2013/2014. The will is there, we want to do that and we are working towards that,” she said, according to German news agency DPA. NATO said in January it was committed to withdrawing its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when Afghan forces are scheduled to take full responsibility for national security. Germany is the third biggest contributor to NATO’s 130,000-strong, US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) after the United States and Britain. It had 4,900 soldiers in Afghanistan as of February 1, but a further 500 are set to be withdrawn by 2013 before a complete pullout. Opinion polls have shown that the German mission, the first major Bundeswehr deployment outside of Europe since World War II, has been consistently unpopular in the country. Tensions were running high in Afghanistan as Merkel arrived following a US soldier’s massacre of 16 villagers, including women and children, in their homes in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar before dawn on Sunday. — AFP
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UK’s first euthanasia case gets high court go-ahead
London, March 12 Over ruling the government’s objections, the judge said 58-year-old Nicklinson, who is paralysed and wants a doctor to be able to lawfully end his life, should be allowed to proceed with his case. Nicklinson from Melksham, Wiltshire, has “locked-in syndrome” following a stroke in 2005 and is unable to carry out his own suicide, BBC reported. “Locked-in syndrome” leaves people with paralysed bodies but fully-functioning minds. —
PTI
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President Barack Obama has vowed a swift probe into the killing of 16 civilians in Kandahar by an American soldier as he called his counterpart Hamid Karzai to express shock over the
incident.
Gaza City, March 12
Kabul, March 12
