US defense chief in Afghanistan as bombs kill 9 - Reuters

1 of 4. An Afghan National Army soldier keeps watch near a mosque where an Afghan delegation meets with locals in Alokozai village, Panjwai district Kandahar province, March 13, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/ Ahmad Nadeem

By Phil Stewart

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan | Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:13am EDT

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit on Wednesday, as the United States tried to contain fallout from a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier.

A motorcycle bomb went off in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, killing an Afghan intelligence soldier and wounding two, as well as a civilian, while a roadside bomb killed 8 civilians in neighboring Helmand province, officials said, as Panetta kicked off a two-day trip by visiting troops.

Panetta told them the weekend killings by what U.S. and Afghan officials have said was a lone rogue soldier would not undermine relations with Afghanistan.

"As tragic as these acts of violence have been, they do not define the relationship between the coalition and Afghan forces, and the Afghan people," he told soldiers at Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine base in the volatile southern province.

"We will be tested, we will be challenged. We'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war," Panetta said.

Panetta's trip had been scheduled before Sunday's shootings in two villages in Kandahar province, but gained added urgency as political pressure mounted on Afghan and U.S. officials over the unpopular war, now in its eleventh year.

American soldiers are the likely targets of any backlash over the killings of villagers, who included nine children and three women, by a lone American soldier. The Afghan Taliban threatened to retaliate by beheading U.S. personnel.

But Panetta, the most senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan since the shootings, said the massacre would not alter U.S. withdrawal plans and strategy.

Afghans investigating the incident had been shown video of the soldier, said to be a U.S. Army staff sergeant, taken from a security camera mounted on a blimp above his base, an Afghan security official who could not be identified told Reuters.

The footage showed the uniformed soldier with his weapon covered by a cloth, approaching the gates of the Belandai special forces base and throwing his arms up in surrender, the official said.

The video had been shown to investigators to help dispel a widely held belief among Afghans, including many members of parliament, that more than one soldier must have been involved because of the high death toll, the official said.

Panetta was to hold talks with Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai as tension remains high following a spate of incidents including the burning of Korans at the main NATO base in the country last month.

Panetta's arrival in Helmand - where U.S. Marines and British soldiers are battling a resilient insurgency - came a day after the first protests over Sunday's massacre flared in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Some 2,000 demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded Karzai reject a planned strategic pact that would allow U.S. advisers and possibly special forces to remain beyond the pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.

DEMAND FOR TRIAL in AFGHANISTAN

The U.S. military hopes to withdraw about 23,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of the coming summer fighting season, leaving about 68,000.

In the two Panjwai district villages where the weekend massacre took place, U.S. troops remained confined to the compound where the soldier was based, and people in the area demanded a trial in Afghanistan under Afghan law.

"They have to be prosecuted here. They have done two crimes against my family. One they killed them, and secondly they burned them," said Wazir Mohammad, 40, who lost 11 members of his family in the incident.

A cleric, Neda Mohammad Akhond, said he believed the shootings may have been retaliation for an insurgent landmine attack on a U.S. convoy in the days before the massacre.

"They asked people to come out of their homes and warned them they would avenge this," Akhond said.

There was no independent verification of an earlier attack.

NATO officials said it was too early to tell if the U.S. soldier would be tried in the United States or Afghanistan if investigators were to find enough evidence to charge him, but he would be tried under U.S. laws.

Typically, once an initial investigation is completed, prosecutors decide if they have enough evidence to file charges and then could move to a so-called Article 32 or court martial.

While Afghan members of parliament called for a trial under Afghan law, Karzai's office was understood to accept that a trial in a U.S. court would be acceptable provided the process was transparent and open to media.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Nadem in KANDAHAR and Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, Writing by Rob Taylor, Editing by Robeert Birsel)

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On the Turkish border, a stream of fleeing Syrians - Reuters

By Jonathon Burch

KAVALCIK, Turkey | Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:54am EDT

KAVALCIK, Turkey (Reuters) - The Syrian refugees appeared silently through the late morning fog, at first one by one, then in groups of five or more, settling on the damp grass just behind the barbed wire fence that separates their homeland from Turkey.

Within an hour up to 100 people, mostly women carrying babies or leading young children, sat huddled, clutching what little possessions they could carry across the hills, and waited patiently for the Turkish military to arrive before crossing over to register and be transported to camps.

The refugees are from Killi, a village only a few kilometres from the Turkish border in Syria's Idlib province, a new flashpoint in the one-year-old brutal crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad and his army on anti-government protesters.

"They are bombing Idlib. They are bombing the city. They have tanks and they have rockets," Abdul Samad, one of the refugees, shouted through the fence.

"The rebels came and said: 'The army is going to hit your village tonight. Get out.' And so we walked here," said Samad, dressed in a traditional black gown.

"We won't go back until Assad has gone."

Idlib has seen a marked rise in violence over the past few weeks by both Syrian forces and army defectors. Opposition activists said the army had killed dozens of people in Idlib city on Tuesday while rebels had killed 10 loyalist troops.

ARRIVING ON HORSEBACK

As Samad shouts through the fence, a steady stream of new arrivals appear through the mist. An old woman is helped down from a frail horse by her smuggler guides before they head back into the mist to bring others.

Young girls, aged no more than six or seven, run around picking purple flowers while a group of older boys sit and play cards as if waiting in a departure lounge.

Spotting an opportunity, one man produces a set of small speakers and begins blasting out anti-Assad songs. He grins as he cranks the volume up until the tinny speakers distort.

A small opening in the barbed wire fence that marks this part of the border along Turkey's Hatay province, now serves as one of several crossing points for Syrians fleeing the violence.

They come, even though their journey to Turkey is fraught with danger.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch says Syrian forces have laid mines near the borders of Lebanon and Turkey along escape routes.

Bilal Abdul Rahim, a new arrival from the northern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour said he had seen mines along the border when he crossed six days ago.

"They want to stop us escaping," he said.

A Reuters reporter counted around 100 people waiting to cross through the fence at this part of the border just five minutes' walk from the Turkish village of Kavalcik.

Over the past few weeks, the number of Syrians crossing daily into Turkey has increased by as much as six times, with anything from 200 to 300 people now coming to Turkey every day, Turkish officials say.

There are some 13,000 registered Syrian refugees now living in tented camps in Hatay with an estimated 2,000 more unregistered people staying with relatives and friends in surrounding villages and towns.

The United Nations said on Tuesday an estimated 30,000 refugees have fled Syria since the start of the conflict a year ago, while hundreds of thousands are thought to be displaced within Syria.

Turkey fears a surge of refugees, similar to the tens of thousands who crossed from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Ankara has signalled a tide of refugees is one of the factors that could trigger efforts to establish a 'safe zone' on the Syrian side of the border.

Having ditched its earlier friendship with Assad because of his refusal to swap repression for reform, Turkey is now at the forefront of efforts to galvanize international action to stop the violence spiraling into civil war.

Istanbul will host the second meeting of the "Friends of Syria", grouping mostly Arab and Western countries on April 2. Syria's political opposition also meet regularly in Istanbul, while soldiers from the rebel Free Syrian Army have been given sanctuary at tented refugee camps in Hatay.

The seven camps there are fast approaching capacity and a new container city is being constructed further east in Kilis province that will house all existing and new refugees.

RACE

Construction workers are racing to ready the Kilis camp -- already months behind schedule -- and officials say they hope to open it at the beginning of April.

"We are trying to fill all the empty spaces at the existing camps. At the moment we can cope," said a Turkish official on condition of anonymity.

"But if tens of thousands come, then we will have problems."

At the nearby Reyhanli camp, problems already appear visible. White mini buses ferry new arrivals from yet another crossing a few kilometres away into the camp that seems already at capacity.

Men linger outside the camp, talking. A section of the perimeter fence has been brought down so people can come and go more freely.

Thirty-five-year-old Mohammad stands in a tracksuit smoking outside the camp. His right trouser leg is pulled up to his knee revealing a metal brace around his lower leg.

Mohammad said he had been protesting against Assad in Al Atarib, a town near his home in Kili when soldiers opened fire.

"They shot me in my leg. They just opened fire on everyone," said Mohammad, who gave only one name for fear of reprisals.

"They are killing all the men, wherever they are."

Friends carried Mohammad on their shoulders across the hills to Turkey 15 days ago where he received surgery on his leg.

"We want Bashar al-Assad to fall. We just want life to return to normal," he said.

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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US defense chief in Afghanistan as bombs kill 9 - Reuters

1 of 4. An Afghan National Army soldier keeps watch near a mosque where an Afghan delegation meets with locals in Alokozai village, Panjwai district Kandahar province, March 13, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/ Ahmad Nadeem

By Phil Stewart

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan | Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:13am EDT

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit on Wednesday, as the United States tried to contain fallout from a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier.

A motorcycle bomb went off in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, killing an Afghan intelligence soldier and wounding two, as well as a civilian, while a roadside bomb killed 8 civilians in neighboring Helmand province, officials said, as Panetta kicked off a two-day trip by visiting troops.

Panetta told them the weekend killings by what U.S. and Afghan officials have said was a lone rogue soldier would not undermine relations with Afghanistan.

"As tragic as these acts of violence have been, they do not define the relationship between the coalition and Afghan forces, and the Afghan people," he told soldiers at Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine base in the volatile southern province.

"We will be tested, we will be challenged. We'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war," Panetta said.

Panetta's trip had been scheduled before Sunday's shootings in two villages in Kandahar province, but gained added urgency as political pressure mounted on Afghan and U.S. officials over the unpopular war, now in its eleventh year.

American soldiers are the likely targets of any backlash over the killings of villagers, who included nine children and three women, by a lone American soldier. The Afghan Taliban threatened to retaliate by beheading U.S. personnel.

But Panetta, the most senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan since the shootings, said the massacre would not alter U.S. withdrawal plans and strategy.

Afghans investigating the incident had been shown video of the soldier, said to be a U.S. Army staff sergeant, taken from a security camera mounted on a blimp above his base, an Afghan security official who could not be identified told Reuters.

The footage showed the uniformed soldier with his weapon covered by a cloth, approaching the gates of the Belandai special forces base and throwing his arms up in surrender, the official said.

The video had been shown to investigators to help dispel a widely held belief among Afghans, including many members of parliament, that more than one soldier must have been involved because of the high death toll, the official said.

Panetta was to hold talks with Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai as tension remains high following a spate of incidents including the burning of Korans at the main NATO base in the country last month.

Panetta's arrival in Helmand - where U.S. Marines and British soldiers are battling a resilient insurgency - came a day after the first protests over Sunday's massacre flared in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Some 2,000 demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded Karzai reject a planned strategic pact that would allow U.S. advisers and possibly special forces to remain beyond the pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.

DEMAND FOR TRIAL in AFGHANISTAN

The U.S. military hopes to withdraw about 23,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of the coming summer fighting season, leaving about 68,000.

In the two Panjwai district villages where the weekend massacre took place, U.S. troops remained confined to the compound where the soldier was based, and people in the area demanded a trial in Afghanistan under Afghan law.

"They have to be prosecuted here. They have done two crimes against my family. One they killed them, and secondly they burned them," said Wazir Mohammad, 40, who lost 11 members of his family in the incident.

A cleric, Neda Mohammad Akhond, said he believed the shootings may have been retaliation for an insurgent landmine attack on a U.S. convoy in the days before the massacre.

"They asked people to come out of their homes and warned them they would avenge this," Akhond said.

There was no independent verification of an earlier attack.

NATO officials said it was too early to tell if the U.S. soldier would be tried in the United States or Afghanistan if investigators were to find enough evidence to charge him, but he would be tried under U.S. laws.

Typically, once an initial investigation is completed, prosecutors decide if they have enough evidence to file charges and then could move to a so-called Article 32 or court martial.

While Afghan members of parliament called for a trial under Afghan law, Karzai's office was understood to accept that a trial in a U.S. court would be acceptable provided the process was transparent and open to media.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Nadem in KANDAHAR and Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, Writing by Rob Taylor, Editing by Robeert Birsel)

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Swiss bus crash kills 28 Belgians, most children - Reuters

* Crash kills 22 children, 24 more injured

* Bus drivers killed, cause of crash unknown

* Most children aged about 12, on way home from ski trip

* Parents to be flown by military plane to Switzerland

* "Sad day for Belgium", prime minister says (Adds details from school)

By Denis Balibouse and Philip Blenkinsop

SIERRE, Switzerland/HEVERLEE, Belgium, March 14 (Reuters) - A bus carrying a Belgian school party home from a ski trip crashed into the wall of a tunnel in Switzerland late on Tuesday, killing 28 people, including 22 children.

The bus, transporting 52 people, mostly school children aged about 12 from the towns of Lommel and Heverlee in Belgium's Dutch-speaking Flanders region, crashed in the Swiss canton of Valais, police told a news conference early on Wednesday.

A police photograph showed the bus rammed up against the side of the tunnel, the front ripped open, broken glass and debris strewn on the road and rescue workers climbing in through side windows.

"It is a sad day for all of Belgium," Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo said in a statement expressing his "great horror". He said he would travel to Switzerland on Wednesday.

The bus was returning to Belgium from a skiing holiday camp in Val d'Anniviers, a resort in the Valais Alps that border France.

Police said the bus had just joined the highway towards the Swiss town of Sierre after coming down into a valley. After travelling 2 km (1.2 miles) on the road, the bus bumped into the curb and skidded into an emergency siding in the tunnel.

The front third of the bus was completely torn apart. Many children were trapped in the wreck and had to be freed, said police.

About 200 police, firefighters, doctors and medics worked through the night, while 12 ambulances and eight helicopters took the injured to hospital.

NO WORDS, ONLY GRIEF

Children at St Lambertus school in the Belgian town of Heverlee were informed about the accident at an assembly before classes.

"We don't have words, only deep grief. They were supposed to be back now," Dirk De Gendt, the local priest who is on the school board, told Reuters.

Parents of the victims were due to meet at the school later in the morning and then travel by military plane to Switzerland.

"Some parents know their kids have survived. For others there is no news," said Belgian police spokesman Marc Vranckx.

The crash was the worst in Switzerland since 1982 when 39 German tourists were killed on a railway crossing when a train hit their bus. Twelve people were killed and 15 injured when a bus crashed into a ravine in the Valais region in 2005.

"In Valais, we have never seen an accident as serious as this," police spokesman Renato Kalbermatten said, adding the speed limit in the tunnel was 100 km per hour.

Last month, a British teacher was killed and more than 20 people hurt in northern France after a coach crashed while bringing schoolchildren home from a skiing trip in Italy.

Twenty-four other children aboard the Belgium-bound bus were injured and were being treated in hospital, police said. Two drivers on the bus were also killed. The cause of the accident was not yet known, police said.

Dutch news agency ANP cited the Belgian authorities as saying seven Dutch children were on the bus, but the Dutch foreign ministry could not immediately confirm the report.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told French radio Europe 1 the trip was organised by Belgian social organisations. The bus was one of three travelling together, and the other two had returned safely to Belgium, he added.

Switzerland's mountain regions have a history of deadly crashes. In 2001, a truck crashed in the Gotthard tunnel under the Alps, causing a blaze which killed 11 people. (Additional reporting by Katharina Bart in Zurich, Ben Deighton and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels and Geert de Clercq in Paris; Writing by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Louise Ireland and Andrew Heavens)

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