Karzai says U.S. put pact at risk

By HEIDI VOGT and

RAHIM FAIEZ

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president said Saturday that the United States has put the two countries’ security pact at risk with a unilateral airstrike that killed 18 civilians, while a Taliban suicide bomber killed four French soldiers responding to a tipoff about a bomb hidden under a bridge.

The violence and the dispute highlight the muddled nature of the international mission in Afghanistan as NATO coalition countries try to shift to a training role in a country that is still very much at war.

The majority of NATO and U.S. forces are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2014, but the exit is looking far from neat at the beginning of the hot summer months when fighting typically surges.

The U.S. has tried to create an orderly transition through a series of agreements covering detentions, village raids and its long-term commitment to Afghanistan. But the Wednesday airstrike by U.S. forces showed how quickly those deals divorce from the reality on the ground.

During the raid in the eastern province of Logar, troops from both countries came under fire while going after a local Taliban leader holed up in a village home. They fought back, and the Americans called in an airstrike. Only later did they discover that in addition to insurgents, they killed women, children and old men who had gathered there for a wedding party.

Presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said that President Hamid Karzai met with investigators and concluded that U.S. troops had called in the aircraft without coordinating with Afghan units — thus, according to Kabul’s interpretation, violating the terms of its agreements with Washington.