US says troops fired in self defence in Afghan riot

KABUL, May 31 (Reuters) US troops fired in self defence as a riot erupted after a fatal road accident in Kabul two days ago, the US military said today in an account of the incident that sparked the worst anti-American riots in the city since the fall of the Taliban.

''Our initial investigation ... shows fire came from the crowd and our soldiers used their weapons to defend themselves,'' Colonel Tom Collins told a news conference.

Afghan officials say five people were killed by a truck that the U.S. military says suffered brake failure coming down a hill. Seven people were killed in the bloody aftermath.

But Collins said Afghan ministries had told the US military the total number of dead from the accident and riots was 20, and even two days after there was no definitive toll.

The accident occurred in Kabul's north during the morning rush hour, and within a few minutes of the crash Afghan police formed a line to protect the convoy from an angry crowd. A second US convoy arrived on the scene around the same time.

In the hours that followed, rioters rampaged through central Kabul. They looted shops, besieged a private television station and burned the offices of a US aid group before reaching the gates of parliament and the US embassy.

Collins said video footage clearly showed US soldiers firing rounds over the heads of a stone-throwing crowd of up to 500 people from a machine gun mounted on one of the 12 vehicles in the convoy involved in the accident.

But Collins was unable to say whether shots were fired from the crowd before the machine gunner opened up, or whether other soldiers in the convoy had fired.

''We just don't know yet who discharged their weapons or even at whom,'' Collins said.

He said that an investigation was going on into the incident that has damaged relations between the people of Kabul and foreign forces in Afghanistan generally.

No US personnel were wounded during the violence.

''Just because coalition soldiers weren't hurt or injured doesn't mean there wasn't imminent danger,'' said Collins, adding that video showed the troops were clearly in danger because of the proximity of the crowd to the convoy.

There are some 23,000 troops in the US-led coalition fighting a Taliban-inspired insurgency, while a NATO-led peacekeeping force is being increased from 9,000 to 15,000.

Anger over the way US convoys hog roads fuels general resentment of the American presence even though it took US intervention to oust the Taliban regime in 2001, and sow the seeds of democracy that have led to elections in the last two years.

Collins defended the soldier at the wheel of the runaway truck for doing his utmost to avoid pedestrians and, echoing terms used by President Hamid Karzai, said opportunists, agitators and criminals were responsible for turning a protest over the accident into riots.

The driver was being questioned as part of a wide-ranging investigation, but he was not in custody, he added.

REUTERS SHB PM1550