By NNN-AfghanNews,
Kabul : Hundreds of people blocked roads and fought with police in southern Afghanistan on Friday over unconfirmed reports that Polish troops fired guns in a village mosque.
Both NATO forces and Polish officials said they had no reports of any such incident. Polish troops are deployed in the province but there were no records of international troops in the immediate area, NATO added.
It is often difficult in Afghanistan’s turbulent south to separate actual incidents from Taliban propaganda, but a government delegation said the mosque door was damaged by bullets and some protesters said they had witnessed the mosque raid on Thursday.
A protester said he was in the mosque in the village of Dhi Khodaidad, south of capital of Ghazni province, when Polish forces fired their guns when raiding the mosque. He said the bullets hit a wall but did not injure anyone.
The Ghazni protest turned violent as the crowd of about 500 people threw rocks at police and at least three demonstrators were wounded by gunfire before the melee calmed down, Ghazni police Chief Mohammad Zaman said.
At least two bullets hit the door of the mosque, said Deputy Gov. Kazim Allayar, who led a delegation that visited the building Friday. He said he did not have further information but that government officials would meet with Polish forces Saturday to find out if they were involved.
NATO forces said an initial query turned up no reports of troops in Dhi Khodaidad, but they were continuing to investigate.
Separately Friday, NATO forces said one of their troops was killed in a bomb attack in neighboring Zabul province.
The service member died in an explosion Thursday, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said. A spokesman declined to provide further details.
NATO forces typically do not release the nationalities of killed or wounded troops. A number of countries have troops in Zabul, including Romania, Canada and Britain.