Afghans Protest After NATO Kills Father of Five

US Troops Raided Family Home of Afghan MP in Nangarhar

by Jason Ditz, April 29, 2010

The official statement reads largely the same as the others do. “An individual with a weapon” is spotted during the raid and after being determined a threat “was shot and killed.” Other than a protest in Jalalabad nothing was unusual.

Most of the time the story would end there. We would never hear who the “individual” was, we certainly would never hear that troops ransacked the home during the raid. In ordinary cases, this would be just another Afghan with a gun, killed by NATO troops and chalked up as a combat death.

But this time we do know the victim. Amanullah, a 30 year old auto mechanic and father of five, who made a panicked phone call to his distant relative, Afghan MP Safiya Sidiqi, that the family compound was being raided by what he assumed was a “gang of thieves.”

He had no reason to think anything different. After all, who figures that the US would launch a night raid against the family home of a member of parliament? Shot six times by the raiding US troops, including in the face and heart, Amanullah was slain on the spot.

In the raid, the US troops handcuffed everyone in the compound and took fingerprints, they claimed they were looking for a “Taliban facilitator.” They never did find him.

The killing sparked yet another protest, in the nearby city of Jalabad, over the repeated NATO killings of civilians. Sidiqi wants to see the soldiers involved in the attack arrested and charged in the killing. NATO has yet to comment, but is unlikely to offer anything more than the customary apology and a small sum of money.

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