Police fire on Afghan demonstrators

Afghan police open fire and turn a water cannon on demonstrators angry about allegations that western troops torched a Quran.

Afghan police have opened fire and turned a water cannon on demonstrators angry about allegations that western troops torched a Quran, wounding at least three people, officials and witnesses said. Clashes erupted as police tried to prevent around 300 students, most of them men, from marching on parliament, the city's criminal investigation police chief, Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, said. "Police fired at the crowd, one bullet hit me. I was closing my shop at the time," Sherullah, an 18-year-old man who suffered a bullet wound to his hip, said from his hospital bed.

"They (policemen) were just firing. They were firing at the people," the wounded young man said. Mr Sayedzada denied that police fired towards the crowd, saying they only aimed their guns in the air. They also used water cannon, the police chief added. But a doctor at the emergency ward of Ibn Sina hospital said that at least three men suffering from "bullet wounds" had been admitted for treatment.

More than 15 police were also wounded in clashes between the angry mob and security forces, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. Meanwhile seven US soldiers and three US civilians were killed in a helicopter crash in western Afghanistan in the early hours this morning, Nato said. The helicopter crashed due to "unconfirmed reasons," NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement, adding: "The cause is not believed to be from enemy action." "Seven US service members and three US civilians were killed," the ISAF statement said. "Those injured include 14 Afghan service members, 11 US service members and one US civilian."

An ISAF source said that the crash happened in Badghis province, an area where Taliban activity, much of it related to opium production, has been escalating in recent months. In Pakistan today, Taliban militants armed with rockets and guns stormed a military check post in the country's tribal belt killing four soldiers, security and government officials said. The attack on Matak post in the Charmang area of Bajaur district near the Afghan border was mounted by about 20 militants overnight, they said.

"First they lobbed several rockets and then approached the post and opened fire with automatic weapons," local administration official Ghulam Saidullah said. Four security officials were killed and two wounded in the sudden assault, he added. Security officials said troops retaliated, killing six Taliban militants and wounding four others. * AFP