A four-year-old boy was accidentally shot dead by US forces in Afghan province of Helman, Afghan officials said on Friday.
An official from the southern province of Helmand told a foreign news agency that US Marines shot the boy on Wednesday because visibility was poor.
“As the weather was dusty, the Marine forces based there thought he was an enemy and opened fire. As a result of mistaken fire, he was killed,” said the spokesman.
The US Marine’s spokesperson said the incident would be investigated and all possible steps will be taken to avoid civilian deaths.
The event comes as a latest strain to the ties between United States and Afghanistan which have been dented with by President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a bilateral security deal that would approve a US military presence after the withdrawal of most foreign troops this year.
Karzai conditioned signing that pact after the US puts an end to all unilateral military activities in the country as they cause avoidable citizen casualties.
“We have called … for an absolute end to ISAF/NATO military operations on homes and villages in order to avoid such killings where innocent children or civilians are the victims,” the president’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, remarked on the death of the four-year-old.
Aircraft Crash
Also on Friday, an aircraft crash in eastern Afghanistan left two US service members and a civilian dead.
“At this time, there are no indications of enemy involvement in the cause of the aircraft mishap,” the force said.
