Nearly 2,000 angry villagers protested early yesterday outside Bagram Air Base, the US military headquarters in Afghanistan, after US troops raided houses and arrested 10 people overnight, officials said.
"Thousands of angry protesters have gathered here in front of the Bagram base main gate," Northern Bagram district governor Kabir Ahmed said by phone from the scene of the rally.
"They demand the release of the 10 people US forces arrested from Deh-mullah village of Bagram last night."
Around 1:00am yesterday US troops started raiding houses in the village. Night raids violate Afghan traditions of privacy and have fuelled resentment against foreign troops in the past.
Shouts of "Down with America" could be heard over the telephone from the rally. "Death to the American troops, and long life to Afghan mujahidin," angry demonstrators yelled.
The US military put the size of the protest at several hundred.
"We are going to get together with local leaders because we don't know exactly what the reasons behind the protest are," US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O'Hara said.
The Bagram governor said local authorities had asked for additional police from neighboring Parwan Province to stop the protesters from trying to break into the base.
"The protesters condemn the villagers' house search by the US forces at night," Ahmed said.
President Hamid Karzai has pointedly asked foreign troops to launch the searches together with Afghan soldiers.
"The Americans carried the search on their own," said Ahmed of the previous night's raids. "They even did not inform us. They could tell us to arrest them and hand them over the suspects they wanted.
Meanwhile, fighting between Taliban rebels and US and Afghan forces killed about 50 suspected militants and two Afghan soldiers, in the deadliest clashes in weeks, a provincial governor said yesterday.
The fighting late on Monday in Uruzgan Province's Dihrawud district came during an offensive against a rebel camp, which had been used as a base for attacks in neighboring areas, Governor Jan Mohammed Khan said.
About 25 suspected insurgents were captured, he said, adding that Afghan troops were still finding the bodies of rebels yesterday.
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