KABUL, 26 July 2003 — Scared Afghans in the southern province of Kandahar hid their Qur’an copies and other religious items before US troops searched their village, afraid the Americans would kill them for being Muslims, a US military spokesman said yesterday. “The village of Atel Mohammad removed all of their religious items, including the Qur’an copies from the village before Special Operations Forces and AMF (Afghan militia forces) arrived,” Col. Rodney Davis said in a statement from Bagram Air Base 50 kilometers north of Kabul.
During the search, a date for which was not given, Special Operations Forces found the items hidden in a flour sack in a nearby dry creek bed and returned them to the elder of the village, near Spin Boldak town on the Pakistan border.
“The elder, once pressed for an answer, stated that some of the villagers felt that the Americans would kill them for being Muslims and these religious items were proof of their faith,” Davis said.
It was not known who had told the villagers that American troops would kill them for being Muslim. Kandahar province was the former heartland of the ousted Taleban regime and remnants of the hard-line militia and its Al-Qaeda allies continue to launch regular attacks on US-led coalition forces and government targets.
US troops last weekend killed up to 24 Taleban in a failed ambush by the fighters near Spin Boldak. Davis this week said there had been an increase in attacks on US-led forces in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan yesterday, six policemen were wounded, two seriously, when their vehicle hit a land mine laid by suspected Taleban fighters about 50 km east of the southern city of Kandahar, police and hospital officials said.
