ASADABAD, Afghanistan, March 12, (AFP): An emotional Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday told international troops to “stop their operations in our land”, his strongest remarks yet over mistaken killings of civilians.
Karzai’s comments came after a week in which a relative of his was killed in a raid by foreign forces and he rejected an apology by the US commander of troops General David Petraeus for the deaths of nine children in a Nato strike.
“I would like to ask Nato and the US with honour and humbleness and not with arrogance to stop their operations in our land,” Karzai said in Pashto as he visited the dead children’s relatives in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan.
“We are very tolerant people but now our tolerance has run out.”
In an apparent reference to neighbour Pakistan, the Western-backed Karzai said international forces “should go and fight this war where we have showed them (it is) over the last nine years”.
Insurgents have hideouts in Pakistan’s lawless border regions. “This war is not in our land,” Karzai added.
A spokeswoman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could not immediately comment.

Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omer said the president in his remarks had again been urging an end to accidental civilian casualties, which Omer described as “a big cause of the current disagreement” between Kabul and the West.
“The president, on behalf of the Afghan people, renewed his call on Nato to stop operations that bring about unnecessary losses to the Afghan people,” the spokesman said.
“We have always maintained that the war on terror cannot be fought in the towns and villages of Afghanistan.”
During his visit to Kunar, Karzai also met relatives of those caught up in another incident in the province in which Afghan officials say 65 people died but ISAF says left nine people injured. A relative of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been killed by international forces, Karzai’s brother and officials said Thursday, returning the issue of civilian casualties inflicted by foreign troops to centre stage.
The president’s brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, told AFP that a relative who he described as “our father’s cousin” was shot dead near his home in the family’s village in southern Kandahar province by the US-led Nato force overnight.

“It was a mistake,” said Wali Karzai, a senior provincial politician who denies frequent accusations of involvement in the drugs trade. “The forces conducted an operation, he was at his home, he came out and was shot. It was a mistake. What can you do about it?”
The president learned of the incident Thursday morning, according to his spokesman Waheed Omer, and was “extremely sad” at the news.
Karzai “once again calls on Nato forces to avoid killing civilians,” the spokesman added.
A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the force was aware of the reports and was investigating.
ISAF had initially issued a statement saying that the man killed in the operation was the father of a Taliban leader responsible for distributing car bombs to insurgents in Kandahar city and coordinating weapons supplies from outside Afghanistan.

But it later said it was now “aware of conflicting reports about the identities of those involved and (had) initiated an inquiry to determine the facts.”
The long-sensitive issue of civilian casualties caused by international troops has been high up the political agenda in Afghanistan recently.
Karzai rejected an apology from the US commander of foreign troops General David Petraeus over the deaths of nine children in an air strike last week.
The boys, who were collecting firewood, died in a Nato air raid targeting insurgents in the eastern province of Kunar.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said he was sorry during a visit to the country Monday.