Fresh anti-U.S. protest over Afghan deaths

By Noor Rahman

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Burning an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush and chanting anti-U.S. slogans, hundreds of Afghans staged a third day of protests on Tuesday over the killing of civilians in a raid by U.S.-led forces.

The protesters were mostly university students in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where up to six civilians were killed. They briefly blocked a main road into the provincial capital, Jalalabad, to protest the second killing of civilians in the region by U.S.-led coalition troops in less than two months.

Neighbours of the dead and Nangarhar officials said those killed in the raid on Sunday were civilians, including three women. But the U.S. military said four were Taliban fighters and civilian casualties were a woman and a teenage girl killed in crossfire.

The students, protesting under tight police watch and a blazing sun, repeated calls made in previous protests for President Hamid Karzai to step down.

"Karzai should go. He has no power and he can't serve us," said one student, referring to Karzai's repeated calls for Western troops to avoid civilian casualties when hunting militants.

"We do not want American forces. They should go. Death to America," another chanted, before the protest ended peacefully.

A powerful tribe in the province, the Shinwar, on Monday vowed not to allow U.S.-led forces and troops under a separate U.S.-led NATO command into their district to hunt the Taliban.

The deaths in Nangarhar were followed by reports of dozens of civilian deaths in several days of ground and air attacks by U.S.-led forces in the western province of Herat.