US troops fired into a crowd of hundreds of stone-throwing rioters, killing at least three Afghans, as their convoy left the scene of an accident that triggered Monday's anti-American riots, Kabul's chief of highway police said.
General Amanullah Gozar told Reuters on Thursday he had witnessed the entire incident, from the point when a US military truck ran out of control down a hill, crashing into vehicles and killing at least five people, to the clashes afterwards, when US troops opened fire.
"As a result of their firing, one young boy and two other people were killed," Gozar said. The US military says small arms fire was heard coming from the crowd, and the crowd overpowered a police line formed to protect the convoy as they tended to injured and collected the damaged vehicle before withdrawing.
"Our soldiers thought they were being fired on from the crowd and they fired their weapons in self defence," said Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman at the US-led coalition headquarters in Kabul. She said an investigation was still in its early stages.