Around 400 people in demo against recent alleged US attack on civilians

(6 Mar 2007) 1. Various of protest 2. Police in line across road 3. Close-up of shouting protester 4. Protester reading statement 5. SOUNDBITE: (Pashto) No Name, protester: "I do not know who has given them the right to shoot innocent men and women. I am surprised why they shot the people, they should be put on trial, they are always talking about human rights, human rights is asking our Mujahedeen (Holy fighters) to go on trial. I do not know who will put them (US Soldiers) on trial. 6. SOUNDBITE: (Pashto) No Name, protester: "They are violating the people in their prisons, no one puts them on trail, we want them to be tried otherwise we will continue our protest." 7. Wide of protest 8. Various of US helicopters flying over the protesters STORYLINE: Hundreds of students from Nangahar University protested on Tuesday against the deaths of 10 Afghans and the wounding of 34 others in an incident that purportedly involved a suicide bomber and U.S forces at the weekend. The Afghans were killed and wounded in an alleged suicide bombing and the purported gunfire that followed by U.S. Marines or militants in the the eastern Nangahar province. Wounded Afghans and witnesses have insisted US Marines fired on civilian cars and pedestrians after a frenzied escape from a suicide bomb and gunfire attack The violence sparked angry anti-US demonstrations by hundreds of Afghan men. A delegation of Afghan officials on Monday visited the site to investigate the attack and its aftermath. A US official called The Associated Press on Monday to say that military authorities believe Sunday's purported suicide bombing was a "clearly planned, orchestrated attack" that included enemy fire on the convoy and a pre-planned demonstration. The official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said authorities believed that criminal elements orchestrated the attack and demonstration and that it was related to ongoing Afghan efforts to eradicate the region's profitable opium poppy crop. The US official also questioned how a large demonstration could materialise so quickly, suggesting it had been planned. But witnesses on the ground said the demonstration occurred more than five kilometres (three miles) west of the bombing and only after the US convoy had driven by, shooting at civilian cars and pedestrians. The US official said there was "no doubt in the minds of Marines on the ground that they were being fired on". The official said Afghan casualties could have been caused by militants on the ground or by US gunfire. However, two senior provincial Afghan officials who also asked not to be named said they had found no evidence to corroborate the US military's claim that militants fired on the Americans. An AP reporter who spoke to more than a dozen witnesses could not find anyone who said they saw or heard incoming militant gunfire. Controversy over the deaths of civilians in Iraq have reached new heights this week, after Afghan officials and relatives claimed a further nine people have died in a coalition airstrike. The strike destroyed a mud-brick home, killing nine people from four generations of an Afghan family, according to survivors. It immediately followed a purported attack late on Sunday on a US airbase in the same area of Kapisa Province, about 50 miles northeast of Kabul. The US military said two men with automatic rifles were later seen heading into a compound of five homes after the rocket attack. A US military spokesman said the men had knowingly endangered civilians by retreating into a populated area, after conducting their attack on coalition forces. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...