Pentagon chief arrives in Afghanistan as bomb kills 9

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit on Wednesday, March 14 as the United States tried to contain fallout from a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier, Reuters reported.

A motorcycle bomb went off in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, killing an Afghan intelligence soldier and wounding two, as well as a civilian, while a roadside bomb killed 8 civilians in neighboring Helmand province, officials said, as Panetta kicked off a two-day trip by visiting troops.

Panetta told them the weekend killings by what U.S. and Afghan officials have said was a lone rogue soldier would not undermine relations with Afghanistan.

Panetta's trip had been scheduled before Sunday's shootings in two villages in Kandahar province, but gained added urgency as political pressure mounted on Afghan and U.S. officials over the unpopular war, now in its eleventh year.

American soldiers are the likely targets of any backlash over the killings of villagers, who included nine children and three women, by a lone American soldier. The Afghan Taliban threatened to retaliate by beheading U.S. personnel.

But Panetta, the most senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan since the shootings, said the massacre would not alter U.S. withdrawal plans and strategy.

Panetta was to hold talks with Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai as tension remains high following a spate of incidents including the burning of Korans at the main NATO base in the country last month.

Panetta's arrival in Helmand - where U.S. Marines and British soldiers are battling a resilient insurgency - came a day after the first protests over Sunday's massacre flared in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Some 2,000 demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded Karzai reject a planned strategic pact that would allow U.S. advisers and possibly special forces to remain beyond the pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.