Afghan FM urges US to investigate troops’ crimes

Afghanistan has called on the United States to launch a “swift and transparent” investigation into the American forces’ involvement in the Quran burning and the massacre of Afghan civilians. The Afghan people are eagerly awaiting a credible inquiry on the part of Washington into the two recent cases and the persons involved must be punished, Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told a news conference in Kabul on Wednesday. A US soldier went on a shooting spree in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar on March 11, killing 16 Afghan men, women and children and wounding several others while they were asleep. The main suspect, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, is currently held in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Afghans insist that the suspect be handed over to Afghanistan to face a public trial as villagers and lawmakers question the US military's account of what happened. This is while an Afghan team tasked with the investigating of the deadly incident has said that more US troops were involved in the massacre and the killing could not have been carried out by a single gunman. On February 20, US soldiers burned copies of the Holy Quran and other Islamic texts at the Bagram Airbase, southeast of the city of Charikar in the province of Parwan. The desecration sparked days of violent protests in Afghanistan, where dozens of people, including several American soldiers, were killed. Rassoul said Afghans expect a credible inquiry into the incident as a way to improve relations between Kabul and Washington.