Probe of Kabul embassy shooting launched

[thedrifter]

May 30, 2003

Probe of Kabul embassy shooting launched

By Todd Pitman
Associated Press


KABUL, Afghanistan ? A team of U.S. investigators has arrived in the Afghan capital to investigate a deadly shooting in which Marines guarding the American Embassy last week killed three Afghan soldiers, the embassy said Thursday.
?The team will seek to clarify the facts surrounding the case. The information will be coordinated with Afghan authorities at the appropriate time,? the embassy said in a statement.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez declined to say when the investigators arrived, but a diplomat who declined to be identified said they?d been in Kabul for several days.

The diplomat said the team was comprised of military investigators from the U.S. Marine Corps. Fernandez refused to give details about them.

Afghan officials have called the May 21 shootout a misunderstanding, saying Afghan soldiers at a military intelligence compound were loading or unloading weapons from a vehicle across the street from the embassy when U.S. guards believed they were about to come under attack and opened fire. Two Afghans also were wounded.

Others say Afghan troops may have fired on a passing car ? perhaps because it failed to stop at a checkpoint. The Afghan soldiers? bullets were inadvertently fired toward the U.S. Marine guards, who mistook it for an attack and returned fire, according to that account.

U.S. officials have remained tightlipped, saying only that the Marines believed they were threatened.

Afghan authorities and American officials have publicly played down the incident, saying it would not undermine bilateral relations. Privately, both sides say it has strained their alliance.

There have been few signs of serious tension between the United States and its Afghan allies since American forces were deployed in the country after ousting the Taliban regime in 2001. America is the primary military backer of President Hamid Karzai?s government.

About 11,500 coalition soldiers, including 8,500 Americans, are in the country to hunt down Taliban remnants, their allies, and fugitives of Osama bin Laden?s al-Qaida network. Kabul also is patrolled by about 5,000 international peacekeepers.






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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.


Sempers,

Roger