About 200 people demonstrated in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul Thursday, chanting anti-American slogans ahead of the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion.
The protesters shouted “death to America and its Afghan puppets” and torched a United States flag at the end of their peaceful march through the city centre, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
“Our demonstration is to condemn the invasion,” Hafizullah Rasekh, one of the organisers, said.
“We want the US military and their Nato allies to leave Afghanistan immediately. We want them to stop killing innocent Afghans.”
A female protestor, Jamila, who said she was a housewife and refused to give her last name, added: “I don’t see any difference between the atrocities of the Taliban and the Americans. Both are killing innocent people.”
Friday marks the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion which ousted the militant Taliban from power.
The Taliban are now leaders of a bloody insurgency in Afghanistan where 140,000 foreign troops, mostly from the US, are based.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) says it does all it can to limit civilian casualties in operations — the issue is highly controversial and incidents resulting in civilian deaths have been repeatedly condemned by President Hamid Karzai.
The United Nations says 1,462 civilians were killed in the first half of this year and insurgents were responsible for 80 per cent of the deaths.
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