KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Hundreds of protesters carrying the bodies of two people killed in a NATOAfghan raid blocked a key road in eastern Afghanistan today. The demonstrators say the dead were villagers while the coalition says they were Taliban insurgents.
The protest was one of the first since a recent U.S.- Afghan deal on night raids mandated that Afghans were supposed to take the lead in such operations with U.S. forces taking a back seat. But many Afghans still blame the raids on the U.S. and NATO, and they’ve persisted as a point of disagreement.
Afghans say the raids, especially those carried out at night by American forces and their allies, cause needless civilian deaths and sow terror among the population. The U.S. military considers the raids critical to its operations.
NATO and residents offered competing narratives on what happened during the overnight raid in a village in Laghman province.
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