By MATTHEW BEARD
An investigation was launched by the British Ministry of Defence yesterday into allegations that British paratroopers in Kabul opened fire on a local family that was trying to take a pregnant woman to hospital.
Initial reports of the incident that happened in the early hours of Saturday suggested Afghan snipers had fired the first shots in a skirmish with paratroopers at an army observation point.
However that sequence of events, which told of an unprecedented attack on members of the International Security Assistance Force, was contradicted yesterday by accounts from witnesses and injured members of the family.
Local residents said they were helping a family to take a 21-year-old pregnant woman, named as Faira, to hospital when they claim they came under fire from a six-man patrol.
According to witnesses, the family, who claimed they were all unarmed, came under a hail of bullets when the lights were switched on. The woman's husband, Mohammed Isaq, 25, claimed he was shot in the arm and his brother, Amaun, 20,was shot in the head and died instantly. The woman's mother-in-law and the driver were also injured, the witnesses said.
Mohammed Isaq, who showed a bandage where he had been wounded in the arm, said peace-keepers came to the house before dawn to offer help but his brother was already dead and his wife had given birth to a boy.
His wife showed what seemed to be superficial shrapnel wounds on her neck and knee but the baby appeared to be healthy. Isaq said: "We did not have any weapons of any kind. We did not hear any gunfire until we ourselves are shot. We were only trying to take my wife to hospital."
The paratroopers, from the 2nd Battalion were unharmed and evacuated the observation post after the incident. Officers immediately insisted they had merely returned fire. Captain Graham Dunlop, a spokesman for the British-led force confirmed insisted that the patrol fired shots only after they had been shot at. He said: "The soldiers identified the firing point and returned the fire."
He said there was more than one gunshot but did not know how many rounds the soldiers fired. Jonathan Turner, an ISAF spokesman, denied a grenade had been used and added there had been a very brief exchange.
Army sources said they were sceptical about the family's claim that none of them were armed. They also pointed out that troops from ISAF were operating under extremely tight rules of engagement.
Officers from the Afghan and British military police began their investigations last night into the incident, which was the latest in a string of violent attacks that have undermined peace-keeping and efforts to end internal fighting.
The Interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, said the situation was not clear but that there was "some sort of incident of firing" in which one or two shots were fired at the peace-keepers' post.
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