US faces new challenge after riots in Kabul

An early morning traffic accident in Kabul involving a US military vehicle rapidly degenerated on May 29 into the worst upheaval in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban, as angry protesters burned vehicles and buildings, ransacked shops and aid agencies and hurled rocks and invective at US soldiers. By the time the authorities imposed a rare night-time curfew in the normally peaceable capital, eight people had been killed and more than 100 injured. The upheaval was a shock to a city long considered an oasis of security, and a serious blow to the authority of the president, Hamid Karzai, who is struggling to contain an escalating insurgency in the south. The violence in Kabul was triggered by an accident involving a US military convoy that careered through a busy Kabul intersection on May 29, crashing into a dozen vehicles and killing one person, according to a military statement. But accounts differed about whether US troops fired into a large crowd that gathered. A spokeswoman, Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence, said US soldiers only fired shots in the air. But a senior Kabul police office, Sher Shah Usafi, said they fired into the crowd, killing one person. Afghan police and soldiers rapidly deployed as rioters smashed police posts, flung rocks at US Humvee troop carriers and marched on the presidential palace, some chanting "death to America!" Vehicles were set on fire, businesses ransacked and aid agencies looted. Residents cowered inside their homes until a measure of calm returned in the late afternoon. In a televised address Karzai appealed to Afghans' painful memories of the country's destructive civil war in the 1990s in a call for people to "stand up" to the rioters. "These people are the enemies of Afghanistan," he said. "You should stand up against these agitators and not let them destroy our country again." Yet the rioting reflected the simmering anger that many Afghans harbor at everything from the slow pace of reconstruction to the conspicuous wealth of foreigners in Kabul, and the aggressive driving tactics of US soldiers and private security contractors in the capital. The US says the tactics are necessary for security, but one protester, Gulam Ghaus, told the Associated Press: "Americans killed innocent people. We will not stop until foreigners leave this city. We are looking for foreigners to kill." The disturbances spread quickly to central districts frequented by foreigners and close to US and Nato military bases. Protesters tore down a billboard poster of Karzai, burned a US flag and torched the offices of the aid agency Care International. "I'm pretty shaken," said Care's director, Paul Barker, speaking to the Guardian by telephone from inside the US embassy. "About half our office has been burned and everything inside destroyed." An Afghan parliamentarian, Shukria Barakzai, said some rioters appeared to be well organized. "Some had guns and handbombs," she said. "These people are taking advantage of the situation for political ends, to destroy our country again." Anger at civilian casualties from US bomb strikes may also have fueled the rioting.