Car aflame as Panetta visits Afghanistan, talks death penalty after shootings

(Mar. 28, 2011) A U.S. Special Forces Soldier, assigned to Special Operations Task Force - South in southern Afghanistan, provides security overwatch during an assault on an insurgent position late in the evening in Kandahar province's Maiwand district. ((U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Devon Popielarczyk)Very little official information has been released about the alleged shootings in Panjwai on Sunday, one reason perhaps for U.S. Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta to travel to Camp Bastion on Wednesday. The camp was built as a British facility in 2006 in Helmand Province.

About the time Panetta arrived, ITN.com said a car reportedly burst into flames on the runway.

The media service for the International Security Assistance Force issued two brief statements on the ISAF Twitter feed updating the incident:

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Caution in order after reports of shootings by coalition soldier in Afghanistan

For more than 3,000 years, Kabul has occupied a strategic location along Central and Southern Asian trade routes. In the late eighteenth century, Kabul was established as Afghanistan's capital. In this false-color satellite image vegetation appears fluorescent green, urban areas range in color from gray to black, and bare ground varies in color from beige to reddish brown. A mountain range, including Kohi Asamayi and Kohi Bini Hisar, snakes through the scene, running roughly northwest-southeast. (Photo and caption from CIA World Fact Book, U.S. Govnmt.)
Media are reporting that a U.S. soldier shot and killed civilians in Afghanistan. Most stories about this incident are currently sourced to officials in the government in Afghanistan. Some areas in the country have been destabilized by Taliban eager to regain control over the country’s government.

Most U.S. media accounts like one BBC story are based on statements from “senior local officials” whose tribal affiliations aren’t questioned by journalists. Agence France Presse quoted an elder from Najeeban village and a man who claimed some of the dead were his family.

Reuters did put the incident in a deeper political perspective:

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