incident in which religious materials were unintentionally mishandled at bagram airbase. let s got to kabul, afghanistan, where conner powell is streaming live. conner? reporter: jon, for the past three days u.s. officials in afghanistan tried to limit the damage from the growing crisis but a situation that has gone from bad to worse and really turning into a full-blown crisis here in afghanistan. we saw again today, protests all over afghanistan. here in kabul, they were for the most part fairly peaceful but in other parts of the country they turned into all out riots. as you said two american soldiers were killed when an afghan soldier turned his weapon on u.s. troops out of anger for this koran burning incident. the taliban of course are using this entire incident to their benefit. they re calling on other afghan soldiers and police officers to turn their weapons and to attack afghan and u.s. soldiers. they are trying to show
protests although they were sparked off by the koran burning incident were actually similar m symptommatic of pent up frustration. he does not have a lot of sway, but there is a substantial government infrastructure. there is a large government media outreach, television programming, radio, and so on. ask the message can be sent across. the crucial thing is how the preachers in every mosque across the country tomorrow how they decide to play this. we ll be looking at that tomorrow morning. bobby ghosh for time magazine, thank you so much for joining us. any time. a united nations report is accusing the syrian government of gross human rights violations that killed two western journalists in a heavy shelling attack. the veteran war reporter marie co colvin was among those killed giving her report to the bbc
the exact number has been changes here, but we do believe it s 16 or so civilians that have been killed. the u.s. military says they are investigating the incident. but what we do know is that a u.s. soldier walked off his base, early this morning, around 3:00 a.m., walked into afghan civilian homes and began shooting them. he went into several homes before, he then walked back to his base and was detained by u.s. and afghan officials. he is currently in the custody of the united states military. they are trying to figure out what exactly prompted this attack. it is not clear. there are reports that there was an incident before he left the base. but nobody s exactly sure. now, u.s. military here has condemned the act and says they are investigating it. the ambassy has warned americans in afghanistan to be cautious because of the fear of reprisal from afghans that are angry this. comes as there is very tense weeks here in afghanistan, just a coup of weeks ago, the u.s. soldiers burned c
koran, park sparking weeks of protest and violence against u.s. troops here in afghanistan. there is fear that this will continue to deteriorate the relationship between the united states government and the united states military and the afghan public and the entire strategy here in afghanistan focuses on and centers around that the u.s. and the international community are here to help afghan civilians. this type of incident removes that trust that is supposed to be there between the united states and the afghan population. the president of the united states, barack obama, issued a statement and said they are aware and they are disturbed by the reports and they are continuing to monitor the situation. but right now, there is real concern that we will see a repeat of the violence that was prompted by the koran burning a few days ago. the situation is only likely to get worse. live from afghanistan, thank you very much. shannon: on another international front, president obama has bee
the wheels on the bus are not coming off. he was refering to the president s strategy in afghanistan. jon: so what about attacks on american trainers. has the numbers spiked as a result of koran burning? or roughly the same as previous years? reporter: well it is very interesting, since 2007 afghan security forces turned their guns on american and european partners 61 times, killing 70 troops and injuring over 100. 12 nato troops have been murdered by afghan troops this year alone. these acts of betrayal accounted for 20% of all troops deaths in afghanistan in 2012. the six american deaths in the last two weeks are apparently revenge killings for the koran burning incident but it is not the first time the afghans have turned on their nato trainers. u.s. trainers have now returned to at least one afghan ministry since the brutal killing at the interior ministry last weekend but they are not saying which ministry for