Afghans: US paid $50K per death in shooting spree

Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan

The U.S. paid $50,000 in compensation for each villager killed and $11,000 for each person wounded in a shooting rampage reportedly carried out by a rogue American soldier in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Sunday.

The families were told that the money came from President Barack Obama. The unusually large payouts were the latest move by the White House to mend relations with the Afghan people after the killings threatened to shatter already tense relations.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of sneaking off his base March 11, then creeping into houses in two nearby villages and firing on families as they slept.

The killings came as tensions between the U.S. and Afghanistan were strained after the burning of Qurans at a U.S. base in February. That act — which U.S. officials have acknowledged was a mistake — sparked riots and attacks that killed more than 30 people, including six American soldiers.

There have been no violent protests after the March 11 shootings in Kandahar province’s Panjwai district, but demands for justice on Afghan terms have been getting louder since Bales was flown out of the country to a U.S. military prison. Many Afghans in Kandahar have continued to argue that there must have been multiple gunmen and accused the U.S. government of using Bales as a scapegoat.

U.S. investigators believe the gunman returned to his base after the first attack and later slipped away to kill again.

That would seem to support the U.S. government’s assertion that the shooter acted alone, since the killings would have been perpetrated over a longer period of time than assumed when Bales was detained outside his base in Kandahar province’s Panjwai district.

But it also raises new questions about how the suspect could have carried out the predawn attacks without drawing attention from any Americans on the base.

Bales has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and other crimes and could face the death penalty if convicted.

In the latest violence, a bomb struck a joint NATO-Afghan foot patrol in Kandahar’s Arghandab district late Saturday, killing nine Afghans and one international service member, according to Shah Mohammad, district administrator.

NATO reported Sunday that one of its service members was killed Saturday in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan but did not provide additional details.