The fallout from the shooting of 16 Afghan villagers by a renegade US soldier has highlighted the mistrust and exhaustion on both sides in a decade-long war increasingly seen as a lost cause.

Many Afghans think that American soldiers kill civilians all the time

In Afghanistan there have been angry words from President Hamid Karzai but as yet no widespread outpouring of rage on the streets as there was last month after copies of the Koran were burned at a US military base.

“Many Afghans think that American soldiers kill civilians all the time,” said Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network.

“I’ve found it difficult to find Afghans who believe it was one American acting on his own, so this is maybe seen as just a more egregious example of their regular practice.”

In the United States and among its major European allies, the massacre is likely to increase what opinion polls show to be widespread disenchantment with America’s longest war and a desire to get the troops out as soon as possible.

While President Barack Obama warned this week against “a rush for the exits”, he also said it was “important for us just to make sure that we are not in Afghanistan longer than we need to be”.

US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat troops are already due to pull out by a deadline of 2014, but the massacre may affect negotiations over a strategic treaty covering relations after that.

“Initially the Afghans had demanded as a condition of the talks that their courts should have jurisdiction over US forces in Afghanistan,” said IHS Global Insight analyst James Brazier.

“Although the US would never countenance such an agreement, the latest illustration of why the Afghans desire such jurisdiction could conceivably bolster their other outstanding condition: to prohibit night raids conducted by ISAF forces, which Mr Karzai blames for high civilian casualties.”

The refusal by the United States to lift immunity for its troops scuppered attempts to broker a similar treaty in Iraq. However, Mr Karzai faces challenges after 2014 not only from Taliban insurgents but from tribal warlords who plunged the country into civil war in the early 1990s following the Soviet Union’s pull-out after a 10-year occupation.

And while the US may be keen to maintain a foothold in a country neighbouring Iran − and to help prevent it from once again becoming a haven for Al-Qaeda − it is likely to come down to a question of who needs who most.

A conflict that Western politicians termed a “good war” when they sent in troops to topple the hardline Taliban regime for sheltering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks, has gone sour.

Afghan soldiers being trained to take over security when the US and its Nato allies pull out are increasingly turning their weapons against Western troops.

Nearly one in five Nato soldiers killed this year has died at the hands of their supposed allies − six of them Americans who were killed by Afghan colleagues after the Koran burning.

Signalling the deepening mistrust between the two sides, Nato countries pulled their advisers out of Afghan government ministries after two were shot dead by an Afghan colleague in the interior ministry.

But it is civilians, like the women and children the US soldier shot in their homes in his pre-dawn rampage on Sunday, who have borne the brunt of the war.

More Afghan civilians − 3,021 — were killed last year than the total number of US and allied troops who have died in more than 10 years − 2,915, according to counts kept by the UN and icasualties.org.

Most died at the hands of Taliban insurgents, the United Nations says, many killed by bombs supposedly targeting the 130,000 US-led troops in the country. There is grief and anger in the villages where Sunday’s violence saw toddlers killed in their sleep or dying in a waking nightmare. On Tuesday, gunmen opened fire on an Afghan government delegation at a memorial service for the slain villagers, killing a soldier, but in a country that has been at war for three decades, more violence is not always seen as the answer.

Bakhtyar, a resident of Kandahar who uses one name, summed up his reaction to the US soldier’s shooting spree: “This requires a political solution. If we demonstrated (the Taliban) would misuse it and turn it into violence.

“This time an American has killed Afghans − we Afghans, too have killed Americans in the past.”

Countries’ relations under Obama

2008
November 4: Barack Obama is elected to replace President George W. Bush, who is already increasing the number of US troops in Afghanistan.

Although Mr Obama has promised to end the US troop presence in Iraq, he is in favour of remaining in Afghanistan.

2009
January 20: Mr Obama is inaugurated. Four weeks later, on February 17, he authorises the deployment of 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, in addition to the 38,000 who are already there.

March 20: Mr Obama announces a new strategy, with increased aid for civilian projects and 4,000 more soldiers to help train Afghan security forces.

August 20: Presidential election in Afghanistan, marked by new allegations of massive fraud. The incumbent, US ally Hamid Karzai, is ultimately declared the winner.

December 1: Mr Obama announces the sending of 30,000 extra soldiers, but also announces that the overall US presence will begin to wind down from July 2011.

2010
February 13: In the southern province of Marjah, troops of the US-led alliance launch the biggest offensive against the Taliban since the invasion of December 2001.

March 28: Mr Obama makes his first visit to Afghanistan. He will make a second visit on December 3, 2010.

April 1: Anti-Western outburst by Karzai, who accuses the international community of having organised the massive fraud that tainted the 2009 presidential election.

November 20: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), which is coordinating most of the action in Afghanistan, adopts a plan under which its forces will leave the country by the end of 2014.

2011
March 22: The process of handing over control to local Afghan forces formally begins.

May 2: US special forces operating in Pakistan kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose presence in Afghanistan was the main justification for the 2001 invasion.

May 31: Mr Karzai reacts with fury to the latest in a series of incidents in which western forces kill Afghan civilians.

June 18: Mr Karzai confirms reports that the United States is holding direct talks with the Taliban.

June 22: Mr Obama announces that 33,000 of the 99,000 US troops in Afghanistan will leave the country by the middle of 2012. Britain, the second-largest contributor after the US, also says it will begin bringing soldiers home.

November 19: An Afghan “Loya Jirga”, or assembly of elders, agrees to a strategic partnership with the US, but adds that US nationals must not be given immunity if they commit crimes in the country.

2012
January 3: The Taliban announce plans to open a political office outside the country, probably in the Gulf region.

January 11: A video published on the internet shows US soldiers urinating on the corpses of Taliban activists.

February 21: The news that US soldiers have burned copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, causes widespread rioting in Afghanistan. Among the dead in the following days are six US troops shot dead by insurgents.

March 11: A US soldier massacres 16 civilians in Kandahar province.

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