Afghans protest civilian killing, arrests: police

Hundreds of Afghans blocked a key road outside Kabul for several hours on Saturday to protest the alleged killing of a civilian in an international military operation, police said. Four other men were arrested in the overnight operation in the province of Logar, adjoining the capital, provincial police chief General Mustafah Mohseni told AFP. Locals said the four were also civilians. The allegation comes as the US military and Afghan government investigated an air strike on Monday last week which killed up to 13 civilians, including women and children, in the western province of Herat. The angry mob that blocked the road about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul paraded the body of the dead man and burnt tyres, witness Hamidullah Sangar told AFP. They also chanted "Death to America," said the police chief, who put the crowd at 350 to 400 people. "The person killed -- Abdul Khaliq -- was a young student," said Mohseni. "One of the arrested was a student and others are locals. I think they are innocent." The brother of the dead student was a mullah, or religious leader, he said. "But I don't know if he was a Taliban," he added. The NATO-led force that operates in Logar province said it was aware of the incident but could not immediately confirm its involvement. It works alongside a US-led coalition and Afghan security forces to defeat a mounting Taliban-led insurgency. The number of civilian casualties in military operations is one of the main sources of tensions between President Hamid Karzai's government and the United States, Kabul's main military backer. In Herat, Afghan authorities say up to 13 civilians including six women and two children were killed in an air strike by the US-led force Monday. The military has said 15 militants were killed but it is investigating. The United Nations said this week that more than 2,000 civilians were killed in insurgency-linked violence last year, the highest civilian death toll since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. About 40 percent of them died in military action, it said.