In case you have missed it, Bill Roggio reports first-hand from Kabul - what caused the U.S. military vehicle accident [brakes], police weren’t stellar, but the situation appears quiet after two days. Bill compares favorably to France, but we don’t know enough to draw that inference:
Kabul, Afghanistan: The city of Kabul has settled down after Monday’s violent outbreak that followed a traffic accident involving a runaway U.S. military vehicle and Afghan civilians. The riots were suppressed in eight hours, and the Karzai government instituted an overnight curfew, which has been extended for Wednesday night. While many businesses were closed on Tuesday (I ventured out to pick up a cell phone on Tuesday but the business was closed), there was plenty of traffic and Afghan police and army on the streets. Several long-time residents of Kabul stated today it was business as usual, and the level of security on the streets was not out of the ordinary. Today I saw the streets filled with taxis, civilian cars and bicycles, businesses and markets were open, and the entrepreneurial street vendors selling phone cards, newspapers and other items were everywhere.
The preliminary investigation shows the accident was caused by “a mechanical failure of the vehicle’s brakes.” The convoy was traveling down a steep hill and the vehicle was described as “a heavy cargo truck.” From one to six Afghanis were killed in the accident, and up to a dozen were killed and over a hundred wounded in the waves of demonstrations and riots that followed. There are accusations the U.S. Army and Afghan police fired into crowds, but this is still under investigation.
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