Afghanistan: Americans used weapons against 'the mob' after crash

Ronald Neumann, the US ambassador in Kabul, was interviewed on BBC worldservice radio 'Newshour' program this lunchtime. He was not able to confirm or deny reports that US forces had fired into the crowd after a truck in their convoy ploughed into cars in Kabul two days ago - killing five people. He denied unsubstantiated reports that some of the US servicemen had appeared to be 'intoxicated' and blamed the accident on brake failure.

He also claimed that the media had overstated the anti-American nature of the subsequent protests. The cries of 'death to America' 'US out now' etc were 'not pervasive'. Regarding a motion in the Afghan Parliament for the Americans responsible for the deaths to be handed over to Afghan authorities he said that he 'doubts' that will happen.

Coalition spokesman Tom Collins has recently stated that 'the mob' "became increasingly hostile, throwing rocks and threatening US forces",

"There are indications that coalition soldiers did in fact use their weapons in self-defence," he said.

"Our initial investigations show that fire came from the crowd and our soldiers used their weapons to defend themselves," Collins repeated, adding it was not clear who had fired first.

He said it was too early to tell if the soldiers had shot into the crowd as well as above it. Witnesses said they saw gunfire from US soldiers kill four people.