By Zabihullah Tamanna
KABUL
When a suicide attack on foreign forces in the Afghan capital Kabul left a civilian dead and nearly two dozen injured on Tuesday, there was inevitable outrage at the Taliban but also criticism for the foreign soldiers serving in the country.
Many locals believed it was the presence of foreign forces which invited the attack and several Afghan journalists questioned on social media why a foreign armoured military convoy was moving through Kabul, considering the U.S.-led combat mission was wound down at the end of 2014.
“If there were no foreign soldiers, there might have been no suicide bombing,” said a Kabul resident, 21-year-old Mohammad Azam.
His view was apparently more harshly expressed in the aftermath of the blast. According to NATO, two soldiers were taken injured after the attack but, according to eyewitnesses, one of them was not hit by the blast but by stones pelted at them by an angry crowd shouting "death to America."
Courtney Body, a Kabul-based American journalist, said she was also attacked as she arrived to cover the incident.
"Some young guy nailed me really hard with a rock, police said to leave because anger at foreigners too high," she tweeted.
Some reports suggested that one of the angry locals even attempted to attack a soldier with a knife. Many said they were angered by the way NATO troops allegedly harshly forced crowds away from the scene to set up a cordon, and some eyewitnesses even claimed the troops fired into the air to disperse the crowd.
Although NATO-led foreign forces ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in late December 2014, there are still more than 13,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, for training and advice, and are sometimes seen driving through Kabul streets.
“Foreign forces have to respect Afghanistan's law and behave with Afghans politely,” said political and military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhail.
Condemning the suicide attack and the alleged firing by foreign troops, Amarkhail said the Afghan government should investigate the issue and discuss it with countries contributing troops to Afghanistan, including the U.S.
There was also anger on Monday after NATO troops raided the compound of Jan Ahmad, a former militia commander and ally to senior government figures, and destroyed his large cache of weapons.
But the hostility to foreign troops is not shared by everyone in Afghanistan. In the northern provinces especially, there is strong support for troops in the villages and cities.
While there is enmity towards foreign forces in the former Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan's south, Afghan children in the north can be seen following foreign troops as they patrol, shaking hands and using whatever simple English words they know.
