For the Love of God, Can We Leave Now?

A US soldier has killed more than a dozen civilians in a shooting spree in southern Afghanistan before being detained, officials say.

A member of the Kandahar provincial council who visited the site of the shooting in Panjwai district told Al Jazeera that at least 17 civilians were killed when the soldier left his base early on Sunday morning and opened fire.

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"The soldier went through three separate houses, shooting at people as they slept in their beds. After the soldier shot these people, he turned himself in."

  alJazeera

UPDATE

There were 16 bodies -- including women and children -- in three Afghan houses in two villages only 500m from the US base in Panjwayi district in southern Kandahar province.

In one house in village of Alkozai there were 10 burned bodies, including women and at least two children aged two or three, in one room. The body of another woman was lying at the entrance to the house.

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One other person died in a second house in Alkozai while four more were killed in nearby Najeeban village.

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NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it has arrested a soldier "in connection to an incident that resulted in Afghan casualties in Kandahar province".

A spokesman for Kandahar Governor Ahmad Jawed Faysal, said the soldier walked off his base and started shooting at 3am (9.30am AEDT).

[...]

NATO officials apologised for the shootings.

  The Australian

Apologized. They always do. I'm sure it makes everything okay with the Afghanis.

The soldier has not been named, but is thought to be a staff sergeant.

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a speech on Sunday that his government still expects to sign a strategic partnership with the United States in the next couple of months.

  BBC

He maybe ought to do it sooner than later before the entire country rises up and heads to his house.