No decision has been made yet about whether to hold the trial of the soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in Afghanistan, a US military spokesman said yesterday.
Afghan lawmakers have demanded that the US staff sergeant face a public trial inside Afghanistan and have called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to suspend any negotiations with the US on a long-term military pact until this happens.
“No final decision has been made yet” on the location of the trial, said Colonel Gary Kolb, a US military spokesman in Afghanistan.
“We have done court martials in Afghanistan before, so we have the capability,” Kolb said.
The US is holding the soldier that military officials say slipped off a US base before dawn on Sunday, walked to a local village, barged into villagers homes and opened fire. Some of the corpses were burned. Eleven were from one family. Five other people were wounded.
The military said on Tuesday there was probable cause to continue holding the soldier, who has not been named, in custody. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has said he could face capital punishment.
Villagers — angry at foreign troops, frustrated with their government and tired of war — recounted the tragedy to a delegation sent to the scene by Karzai. Two who lost relatives insisted that not one — but at least two — soldiers took part in the shootings.
US President Barack Obama pledged a thorough investigation, saying the US was taking the case “as seriously as if it was our own citizens, and our children, who were murdered.”
On Tuesday, protesters in the east burned an effigy of Obama as well as a cross, which they used to symbolize Christianity. They also called for the death of the soldier who has been accused.
It was the first significant protest since the killings, which many had worried would spark another wave of deadly riots like those that followed the burning of Korans at a US base last month. Nearly a week of violent demonstrations and attacks left more than 30 dead, including six US soldiers.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing