MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, March 21, (Agencies): In a speech marking the Afghan new year, Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili on Monday called on militants to lay down their weapons because the nation will never return to the days of hardline Taleban rule.
“We are going toward the light. We are never going back to the dark,” Khalili said at a historic blue-tiled mosque in the center of Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
Efforts to reconcile with Taleban insurgents have not yet gained traction and violence continues across the nation.
On Sunday night, a gunman killed an Afghan policeman outside the headquarters of Yosuf Khel district of Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan, said Mokhlis Afghan, a spokesman for the province. The officer was trying to prevent the man from getting inside when he was shot.
Also, NATO reported that a coalition service member died Sunday in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan. No details or the service member’s nationality were released. The death raised to 88 the number of international troops killed so far this year.

Meanwhile, the US Army on Monday formally apologized “for the distress” caused by pictures portraying abuse allegedly committed by American troops serving in Afghanistan.
The army said the actions seen in the pictures were “repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States Army.”
German weekly Der Spiegel earlier Monday published photos that it said showed two US soldiers in Afghanistan from a rogue army unit posing with dead Afghans. Five soldiers from the unit have been charged with murder for allegedly shooting Afghan civilians for sport, and seven others for obstructing justice and other offenses.
Two photos, which Spiegel said US authorities had sought to keep secret, appear to show two members of the unit.
In one, a purported soldier, cigarette in hand, holds up the head of a blood-spattered man who is apparently dead. In a second, another purported soldier is grinning widely while also holding up the same man.
A third photo shows two bodies propped up against a post. The people in the picture appear to be dead.

“We apologize for the distress these photos cause,” the army said.
It noted that the actions portrayed in these photographs were under investigation and subject to ongoing US court-martial proceedings.
“These court-martial proceedings speak for themselves,” the army said. “The photos appear in stark contrast to the discipline, professionalism and respect that have characterized our soldiers’ performance during nearly 10 years of sustained operations.”
The photos relate to an ongoing high-profile case of soldiers accused of killing civilians, mutilating their bodies and collecting trophies.
Spiegel said one of the troops in the photos is Corporal Jeremy Morlock, who faces charges of premeditated murder in the deaths of three Afghans.
The other, Private Andrew Holmes, stands accused of participating in a plot to execute an Afghan man in January, the magazine said.
The plan, supposedly concocted by ringleader Sergeant Calvin Gibbs and Morlock, allegedly involved shooting a civilian and tossing a Russian-made grenade at the man to make it appear he was an enemy combatant.

In November, Holmes won a temporary reprieve from legal action relating to murder charges, according to his lawyer.
Morlock is one of five soldiers charged with murder in the case, while seven others are accused of trying to block the investigation, using hashish and severely beating a comrade in retaliation for informing superiors.
Spiegel said the US military tried to prevent the publication of the pictures, fearing a possible backlash against its troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
The well-respected magazine said it had researched the story of the so-called “Kill Team” for five months.
“Spiegel is publishing only three of the 4,000 pictures and videos, only those which are necessary for the story which needs to be told here,” the magazine said.
The army said it is committed to the Law of War and the humane and respectful treatment of combatants, noncombatants and the dead.