Afghanistan Times
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Residents in Khost province staged demonstration in front of the building of the provincial governor after bearing the bodies of seven civilians. Seven men all civilians were said to have been martyred by the US-supported local forces in the Alisher district close to the Pakistani crossing point. The demonstrators claimed that the forces called as ‘Campaign’, attacked a village on Thursday night, killing these people five of whom were brothers. They also said that the killed persons were university graduates and had no ties with the Taliban insurgents. The ‘Campaign’ forces are mostly local people and are trained and armed by the US military to fight the armed opposition groups in the remote areas. Separately, four children were killed in an Afghan air force attack in Ghazni province. The attack was carried out in the Deh Yak district, an area reportedly under Taliban control. The incidents took place at a time that people’s most hopes go toward the security forces to ensure their lives safe and secure amid the increasingly insurgent attacks across the country. This is not the first time that civilians are targeted by the Afghan security forces or the NATO-led foreign troops. These troops have mistakenly and intentionally targeted innocent civilians in the past. Their only excuses were that they wanted to target militants, but the civilians came under attack. Besides that, the local police and other local armed groups seem to do wrong and misuse their arms. They are blamed for kidnappings, armed-thefts, rapes, forced-marriages and other organized crimes which are very much shameful crimes. The government and the foreign troops that formed and armed the local people, did not think at the time that they may turn into trouble-maker groups as most of them had criminal backgrounds. Now it is the government to rethink about such forces. The US military is also responsible for the killing of civilians by their proxy forces. This is very important to either disarm these irresponsible groups or integrate them to the army and police forces, because their role for security even in their respective areas were not eye-catching in the past, but they had made many problems before security. If these groups are not punished, they will continue killings, abductions and other crimes that will spark a national anger.
