{"id":3,"date":"2007-03-23T16:22:51","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T16:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/war-terrorism\/british-troops-kill-afghan-boy\/"},"modified":"2007-03-24T21:23:34","modified_gmt":"2007-03-24T21:23:34","slug":"british-troops-kill-afghan-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/british-troops-kill-afghan-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"British troops kill Afghan boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A funeral has been held for a 12-year-old boy shot dead by British soldiers while he was travelling in a car with his family.<\/p>\n<p>Nato officials have told Al Jazeera they &#8220;deeply regretted the loss of life&#8221; and had launched an investigation into the incident in the capital Kabul on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>British troops opened fire on the car as the boy and his family were driving home from a family gathering, James Bays, Al Jazeera&#8217;s correspondent in Afghanistan, said.<\/p>\n<p>Cradling the body of his dead son, the boy&#8217;s father, Zemarai, said: &#8220;They killed my son &#8211; I can never get him back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"middle\" width=\"309\" src=\"http:\/\/english.aljazeera.net\/mritems\/images\/2007\/3\/23\/1_216133_1_5.jpg\" alt=\"The boy died after the vehicle in which he was travelling was hit by arms fire [Al Jazeera]\" height=\"206\" style=\"width: 309px; height: 206px\" title=\"The boy died after the vehicle in which he was travelling was hit by arms fire [Al Jazeera]\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;Innocent victim&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Zemarai said he was driving seven of his relatives home and was several hundreds metres away from the soldiers&#8217; vehicles when they opened fire.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking from his home before the burial of his son Zaryalai on Friday, he said: &#8220;All of a sudden they opened fire at our vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The first three bullets hit my car and the fourth one hit my 12-year old son in the side of his head.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Afghan interior ministry said Nato troops had opened fire on a minivan &#8220;which apparently tried to overtake the troops or maybe the car was too close to the troops&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Zemarai has denied trying to overtake the convoy and said he was unaware of any warning shots.<\/p>\n<p>Bays said he later counted four bullet holes in the bodywork of the damaged vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The boy is the latest innocent victim of a Nato mistake and his father has said he would join the Taliban or any other group that would force foreign troops from his country,&#8221; Bays said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;Deeply disturbed&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The area&#8217;s police chief told Al Jazeera he was &#8220;deeply disturbed&#8221; by the incident involving International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) troops.<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8220;We&#8217;ve had this sort of problem all over Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope the Afghan government deal with this seriously.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bays said the police chief was later threatened with dismissal for speaking out over the killing.<\/p>\n<p>A child was also hit and killed by a Nato vehicle in a convoy in the eastern province of Khost after he ran out from the side of the road, Isaf said in a statement late on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A funeral has been held for a 12-year-old boy shot dead by British soldiers while he was travelling in a car with his family. Nato officials have told Al Jazeera they &#8220;deeply regretted the loss of life&#8221; and had launched an investigation into the incident in the capital Kabul on Thursday. British troops opened fire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}