The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
March 19, 2012

U.S. IDs Suspect in Massacre of 16 Afghans as Karzai Alleges Multiple Shooters 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The U.S. military has identified the Army staff sergeant suspected of
gunning down 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children. Robert Bales
is a 38-year-old man who enlisted in the military after the Sept. 11
attacks. He is a father of two who served three tours in Iraq. He is
being held in solitary confinement in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In
Kabul, Afghan, President Hamid Karzai raised doubts that Bales could
have carried out the massacre alone.

Hamid Karzai: "On the question of the account of the one person
supposedly who has done this, the story of the village elders and the
affected is entirely different. They believe it is not possible for one
person to do that. In his family (pointing to one of family members) in
four rooms people were killed. Children and women were killed and then
they were all brought together in one room and then put on fire. That
one man can not do."

Afghan protesters are continuing to call for Bales to be tried in
Afghanistan.

Jamal Khan: "We don't want the laws practiced by the Americans and other
foreigners. We have our Koran and our Islamic law and the U.S.
perpetrator must be put on trial according to our laws."



.