Protests sparked as US troops blow up weapons depot

Protesters in the northern Afghan province of Parwan blocked the main highway yesterday after US forces raided the village of a local strongman and blew up a weapons depot belonging to him, officials and residents said.

The raid yesterday morning demonstrated that US troops in Afghanistan, even months after president Barack Obama declared their regular combat mission over, are engaged beyond their publicly stated role of advising the Afghan forces and carrying out targeted counterterrorism operations.

It also highlighted how, despite a lengthy campaign to disarm illegal militias, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, armed groups with no apparent ties to al-Qaeda or even the Taliban are considered by the US mission as much a threat as the insurgency, which is waging a sustained offensive across the country.

The target of the raid was Jan Ahmad, a local commander who fought the Soviets and then the Taliban. Hours after the raid, shops in Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, just north of Kabul, remained closed as Ahmad’s supporters shouted “Death to America” and “Death to the enemies of Islam”. They expressed outrage at the manner of the raid, saying it was a matter that should have been dealt with by Afghan authorities, not by foreign forces.

‘Ready for violence’

“The protesters burned a lot of tyres to show their rage,” said Mahmood Hamidy (20) who runs a private school in Charikar, “and that, if the issue is not taken seriously, they are ready for violence.”

Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive of the Afghan government, called on the protesters to remain calm as he appointed a fact-finding mission and asked Gen John F Campbell, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, to provide further information on the raid.

The Afghan government will “not allow anyone to plot against the mujahideen”, Abdullah said, in reference to the old commanders who fought the Soviets and the Taliban. The US military justified the mission as force protection. Col Brian Tribus, a spokesman for Gen Campbell, said it was “to destroy a cache of munitions that could be used to conduct attacks against Afghans and coalition forces”.

Blown up

The raid on Ahmad’s home, roughly three miles from Parwan’s provincial centre, was carried out around 4.30am yesterday and involved US forces descending from helicopters, an aide to Ahmad said on condition of anonymity. After carrying out a search of his home, the soldiers blew up the depot.

Ahmad’s aide said the depot dated from the fight against the Soviets in the 1980s and did not have new weapons, but US and Afghan officials disagreed. The largest US base in Afghanistan, Bagram Air Base, is in Parwan province and has come under frequent rocket fire in recent months. While those rocket attacks have been attributed to the Taliban, and not commanders such as Ahmad, the presence of a weapons cache so close to a US base was seen as a threat.

“It was a lot of weapons – it must have been a lot to make the foreigners fearful and force them to take action,” said Haji Khalil Fazly, a member of the Parwan provincial council who was involved in the negotiations between the government authorities and Ahmad to calm the protests. Protesters were cleared, and the highway reopened by noon, he said. – (New York Times service)