KABUL — Hundreds of Afghans blocked a major highway south of Kabul on Tuesday, carrying freshly dug-up bodies they claimed were victims of torture by US special forces and demanding the Americans be arrested, officials said. Violence erupted at the rally and two of the demonstrators were killed but the cause of their deaths was unclear, said Mohammand Hussain Fahimi, a provincial council member in Wardak, 45 kilometers (27 miles) south of Kabul. The three bodies displayed at the rally were dug up earlier on Tuesday morning near a former US special forces base in Nirkh district, according to Attaullah Khogyanai, the provincial governor's spokesman. Six other bodies were unearthed there in the past few weeks. Khogyanai said an investigation was underway but that it was too soon to say if the three were among at least nine people who villagers say disappeared into American custody and were never seen again. US special forces withdrew from parts of Wardak earlier this year at the insistence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, following alleged torture, kidnapping and summary execution of militant suspects there — charges US officials have firmly denied. Tuesday's rally brought a car with the three bodies to the local provincial governor's office, then protesters fanned out and blocked traffic on the main road from Kabul to Kandahar, said Fahimi, the council member. “They were throwing stones and shouting against the government and the (American) special forces, saying, ‘We want the killers of these innocent civilians to be prosecuted,'” Fahimi said. The demonstrators tried to get into the governor's office, and police fired in the air to stop them, he said. He added that at least two protesters were killed but he was unsure if they had been shot or trampled. The US has repeatedly denied accusations that people arrested by special forces in Wardak province died in American custody. However, villagers accuse the Americans and their Afghan partners of intimidation through unprovoked beatings, mass arrests and forced detentions. Also on Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was temporarily removing some of its staff from Afghanistan and curtailing some of its activities following an attack last week on its offices in the eastern city of Jalalabad, a spokesman said. Robin Waudo, communications coordinator for the Red Cross in Afghanistan, said a decision on the number of international staff that would leave had not yet been made. He said the organization would continue with some of its services, including orthopedics — the Red Cross supplies many artificial limbs across Afghanistan — supporting Kandahar's largest hospital, and keeping families in touch with detainees. “We are doing this until we can analyze the situation,” Waudo said. — AP
