US soldier kills 16 Afghan civilians in predawn shooting spree

An American army staff sergeant from a unit based in Washington state is in custody after attacking villagers in three houses as they slept early Sunday morning. Many civilians were also wounded, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coalition said.



President Barack Obama called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai promising to establish the facts quickly and "to hold fully accountable anyone responsible."

Conflicting Reports

U.S. officials assert that a lone soldier was responsible, in contrast to witnesses' accounts that several U.S. soldiers were present. The incident was one of the worst of its kind since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said anti-U.S. reprisals were possible following the killings, just as the Koran burning incident a few weeks earlier had touched off widespread anti-Western protests in which at least 30 people died.

Neighbours and relatives of the dead said they had seen a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar's Panjwayi district at about 2 a.m., enter homes and open fire. An Afghan man who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies.

Obama said he was deeply saddened. "This incident is tragic and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan," Obama said in a statement.