Chanting "Death to America!" and weeping as they prayed, hundreds of Kabul university students marched on Sunday in protest against US air strikes last week that Afghan officials say killed more than 100 civilians.
Washington has acknowledged that some civilians were killed during a battle in which its aircraft bombed Afghan villages. US forces have not said how many people they believe were killed and have blamed Taliban insurgents for firing from the rooftops of homes where civilians sheltered.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says more than 100 and perhaps as many as 130 civilians were killed in air strikes in western Farah province during the battle. Provincial officials say villagers have drawn up lists with names of 147 dead. If confirmed, such a toll would make it the deadliest incident for civilians since US forces launched their fight against the Taliban in 2001.
The incident has stoked Afghan hostility to US troops even as Washington is sending 17,000 reinforcements in coming months to the country's south, heartland of the Taliban and the drug trade that produces nearly all the world's heroin.
"MASSACRE":
Students at the university issued a statement calling for troops responsible for civilian casualties to be prosecuted. "From one side our people are fed up with the beheadings and suicide attacks by the Taliban. From other side, the massacre of people by US forces is a crime they can never forget," it said. At the demonstration, attended mainly by male students, marchers held aloft banners that read in English: "USA is biggest terrorist around the world!"
"We gathered here to share our sadness with the innocent people who were martyred. We call on the international community, Afghan government to stop the killing of innocents, stop the killing of an Afghan generation," said student Ahmad Fahim.
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