Blast near U.S. convoy kills Afghan, wounds scores

By Amin Jalili
ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A blast near a stalled U.S. troop convoy in eastern Afghanistan killed one child and wounded scores of civilians and three U.S. soldiers on Tuesday, Afghan officials and the U.S. military said.
Some witnesses and the Afghan Education Ministry initially blamed a U.S. soldier for throwing a grenade into a crowd, but the U.S. military said the grenade was Russian-made and had been thrown by an insurgent.
Asadabad hospital doctor Ehsanullah Fazli said most of the wounded were children. Some were in critical condition, he said.
The military said in a statement that up to 54 Afghan civilians had been wounded in the incident in Asadabad, capital of Kunar province in the east. It issued photos of what it said was a grenade fragment with Russian serial numbers.
"The grenade was definitely not thrown by a U.S. service member," U.S. military spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Matthias said. She said a convoy of U.S. troops had stopped when one of their armored vehicles became stuck.
The convoy took ground fire before the grenade was thrown at them, she said.
Still, many Afghans were quick to blame the Americans. The Afghan Education Ministry said in a statement that U.S. forces based in Asadabad had thrown the grenade and that one student was killed and another 15 children were wounded.
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
Some of the wounded said they believed a U.S. soldier had thrown the grenade after a U.S. armored vehicle stopped because of a burst tire.
"I was on my way to school. Their tire burst, and then a soldier hurled a hand grenade from the convoy," said Abdul Wahab, 12, lying in a hospital bed with two shrapnel wounds in his leg.
Two other wounded victims at the Asadabad hospital gave similar accounts. A 20-year-old shopkeeper near the scene, Umranullah, who uses only one name like many Afghans, also said a U.S. soldier from the convoy had thrown a grenade.
Civilian casualties caused by U.S. forces have become a big source of friction between the Afghan authorities and their U.S. allies, and have hurt public support even as the number of U.S. troops in the country more than doubles this year.
The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that procedures had been violated during an air strike last month in which the Afghan government says 140 civilians were killed. Washington says 20-35 civilians were among 80-95 people killed, most of them Taliban fighters, in that strike in western Farah province in early May.
(Additional reporting and writing by Sayed Salahuddin and Peter Graff in KABUL)

Source: Reuters