Killing civilians triggers demonstration in S. Afghan
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A crowd of Afghans came to the streets of Helmand's provincial capital Lashkargah in south Afghanistan Thursday and denounced what they described arbitrary killing of civilians.
"Around 100 people carrying some dead bodies in Lashkargah Thursday morning accused NATO-led forces of killing nine civilians and calling on the government to investigate and punish those responsible," a protestor and demonstrator Hajji Hafizullah Khan told Xinhua.
He added that a NATO plane dropped a bomb on a family who were busy harvesting corn in their land in Babaji area outside Lashkargah, killing nine persons, including three children.
Meantime, spokesman of provincial administration Daud Ahmadi in talks with Xinhua confirmed the incident but said that all those killed were Taliban insurgents.
Taliban purported spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi in talks with media via telephone from undisclosed location claimed that all those killed in the bombardment were not Taliban fighters.
A similar incident, which claimed the life of a civilian in the eastern Khost province, also took hundreds of people to the street on Thursday.
