Afghanistan's president demanded today that the United States no longer carry out military operations or airstrikes and must jump-start peace talks with the Taliban before his country signs a security deal to keep US troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
President Hamid Karzai's deepening anti-American rhetoric comes as the Taliban intensifies its assaults ahead of the planned withdrawal and after Friday's militant raid on a popular Kabul restaurant, the deadliest single attack against foreign civilians in the course of the nearly 13-year US-led war.
Although Karzai has made similar demands in the past, he has in recent weeks ratcheted up his condemnations of alleged US failures as Afghans look fearfully ahead to an uncertain future.
Karzai made the statement after being presented with the findings of an investigation into a joint Afghan-US military operation last week that resulted in civilian casualties which he blamed on a US military air strike.
The US-led international military coalition, however, provided a sharply different account today of what happened during the two-day operation against insurgents in eastern Parwan province, saying it was an Afghan-led effort and carried out at the request of the government.
Karzai convened his National Security Council today to discuss the Parwan attack.
"Airstrikes are a matter of concern for the Afghan people. The National Security Council said there should be an immediate end to all operations and airstrikes by foreign forces," a statement said.
Karzai sent a delegation to investigate the January 15 airstrike in the Ghorband district of Parwan province, which borders Kabul.
The delegation blamed the US for ordering an operation it said killed 12 civilians and four Taliban fighters. It further said local authorities were not informed about the operation.
The coalition, which is carrying out its own investigation, said the government was not only aware but had requested the operation ahead of the country's April 5 presidential elections because the area had fallen under Taliban control.
"The operation was requested by the governor in response to those conditions," the coalition said in a statement. "The resulting plan, approved through the Ministry of Defense, was a deliberate clearing operation to disrupt insurgent activity, based on intelligence obtained primarily by Afghan forces.
