Afghan Govt Slams NATO’s Killing of Security Guards

Raid Violated Agreements, Karzai Govt Insists

The Afghan government publicly condemned NATO today relating to the Friday killings of two private security contractors during a Kabul raid. Interior Minister Zemari Bashary insisted that the raid violated long-standing agreements between NATO and the Afghan government.

Bashary insisted the deal requires that all NATO raids inside Kabul be cleared with the government in advance. Though NATO brought some Afghan police along, they did not clear the move with the national government, claiming a “credible threat” existed. A police general involved was not only sacked over the raid, but has been detained by Afghan officials.

The raid ended with the deaths of two contractors, the wounding of two others, and the brief capture of 15 more. All those detained were released at the order of the Afghan military, and they insist that the contractors did nothing wrong to warrant the NATO attack.

NATO’s own statement claimed the attack thwarted a major threat and that it netted a large number of weapons. The weapons, apparently, we all registered and were just what the contractors were armed with at the time.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.