White House: Karzai claims of US collusion with Taliban 'categorically false'

Obama spokesman rejects Karzai's criticism of US as Afghan in police uniform kills seven including two American troops

The White House rejected as "categorically false" a claim by Afghan president Hamid Karzai that the US was effectively colluding with the Taliban in maintaining violence to prolong America's presence in the country.

Karzai's outburst on Sunday, while new US defence secretary Chuck Hagel was making his first visit to the country, highlighted tensions between Washington and the Afghan government as Nato forces withdraw from the country and negotiations continue over the number of troops to be left behind after 2014.

The White House response to Karzai's latest criticism of the US came as an Afghan dressed in a police uniform opened fire in the disputed Wardak, province killing two US soldiers and at least two Afghans.

One of the Americans killed was a special forces operative from the Green Berets, CNN reported.

Karzai had set Monday as the deadline for the withdrawal of all US special operatives from Wardak province after allegations of abuse, but the US has so far refused.

At the daily White House briefing on Monday, press secretary Jay Carney said: "Any suggestion that the US is colluding with the Taliban is categorically false. Secretary Hagel addressed the questions with president Karzai in their meeting.

"The US has spent enormous blood and treasure for the past 12 years supporting the Afghan people in an effort to ensure stability and security in that country. The last thing we would do is support any kind of violence, particularly involving innocent civilians."

Carney was measured in his response, resisting a call at the press conference to use more strident language. In the past, the Obama administration responded more vigorously to critical comments by Karzai but concluded this was counter-productive.

Carney suggested the latest comments would not have an impact on the schedule for withdrawal, which he stressed had been put in place with agreement with Nato and other allies.

"There is no question there have been a number of difficult security incidents, and there have been comments by President Karzai with which we have disagreed. But our policy has not changed. We went into Afghanistan because we are attacked from Afghanistan."

A decison on the size of the post-2014 US force would be made at a later date by Obama., Carney added.

The latest insider attack capped a troubled three-day visit by Hagel. The faltering start will provide more material for his many critics in Congress who opposed his nomination, particularly after his hesitant appearance at his Senate confirmation hearing.

A press statement from Isaf military headquarters in Afghanistan said the two Americans were killed in an apparent 'green-on-blue' incident, along with at least two Afghan soldiers. A further 10 were wounded. The attacker used a machine-gun mounted on a truck in the village of Jalrez.

Hagel failed to resolve the dispute in Wardak province over withdrawal of special operations forces. He was also scheduled to hand over control of Parwan prison to Afghan authorities but this was cancelled a day before the ceremony.

It is understood the deal collapsed amid continued disagreement over detention of prisoners without trial, and a US demand that it have power to block the release of inmates it considers particularly dangerous.

Afghan rape victim 'attacked again by government workers protecting her'

Girl aged 15 says she was raped by employees and security guard at provincial women's affairs department

A teenage Afghan rape victim who secured a rare conviction of her attacker has said she was assaulted this month for a second time, by a group of government employees tasked with protecting her.

The 15-year-old schoolgirl, from Daikundi province in Afghanistan's freezing, poor central highlands, was first raped four months ago while she was on her way to school, said Nowruz Ali Ataee, head of the provincial criminal investigation department.

In an unusual move for a young girl in conservative rural Afghanistan, where a rape is often considered to bring shame on an entire family, she reported the attack. Equally unusually, for a country that passed a law banning violence against women four years ago but has been slow to implement it, police found and arrested her rapist. He was recently jailed for 16 years and an accomplice was given a five-year sentence.

But the girl had to travel to the provincial capital for the case, and was temporarily living in an "education reform" centre that Daikundi officials said shelters women and children with no family.

After four months, and with her attackers in prison, judges last week ordered that the victim should be sent to a shelter or back to her family, Ataee said.

Her home was not really an option, however. She comes from a remote district, where the roads are now blocked by heavy snows, and it was not even clear if her family wanted her back. The girl's father had died when she was young, and her mother remarried, to a man who one government source said did not treat his stepdaughter well, forcing her to spend long hours herding sheep.

And in Daikundi town there were no suitable shelters, said Ataee, so she was sent to spend the night in the provincial women's affairs department. "The next morning she made an accusation. When the acting chairman of the women's department went to her office and asked her if it was OK, she said some employees and one security guard raped her," Qurban Ali Uruzgani, governor of Daikundi province, told the Guardian.

The victim was not sure how many men had raped her, one source said, because she had lost consciousness at the start of her ordeal, but several men have already been detained.

"We arrested four employees and one security guard of the building and put them in jail," Uruzgani said. The acting chairman of the women's department was briefly held but then released, he added.

After details of the case leaked to the Afghan media, the president, Hamid Karzai, sent a delegation to investigate, something he has done before in cases of extreme violence against women, contested civilian casualties or other cases that catch public attention.

The team, which included representatives from the ministry of women's affairs and the attorney general's office, has now returned to Kabul and is likely to report back within weeks. But regardless of the outcome, the case has already raised fears that a trend of rising violence against women, recorded last year, is continuing into 2013.

Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri

Taliban retaliate after Prince Harry compares fighting to a video game

Afghan militants scornful of Queen's grandson, saying helicopter co-pilot 'doesn't have the brain to know there is a war here'

Prince Harry's remarks that his job as a co-pilot in an Apache attack helicopter required him to "take a life to save a life" may have disconcerted some squeamish westerners. But it was Captain Wales's somewhat blas attitude to fighting the hardline rebels that has most riled the Taliban.

An indignant Taliban spokesman said the young prince was a coward who ran away from fighting the mujahideen, or "holy warriors", as the militants like to call themselves.

"I don't believe that he participated in the fighting," said Zabiullah Mujahid. "Maybe he has seen the mujahideen in a movie, but that's it."

The young prince's comparing his job as co-pilot gunner to a game on a video console in his interview with the Press Association, reported widely on Monday, appeared to have most needled Mujahid, who poured scorn on Harry's 20-week deployment in Helmand.

He accused Harry, who has now completed two tours in one of Afghanistan's roughest provinces, of cowardice and staying away from the fight.

"I think he has a mental problem, that's why he is saying it is a game," he said. "These kind of people live like diplomats in Afghanistan, they can't risk themselves by standing against the mujahideen."

The spokesman, thought to be several different people who use the same name to speak to the media, had clearly been pondering Harry's widely reported comments before the Guardian contacted him at an undisclosed location on Tuesday.

The prince, who was in charge of firing the Apache's Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, rockets and 30mm gun, called his job a "joy" in interviews released on Monday.

"It's a joy for me because I'm one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I'm probably quite useful," he said.

Mujahid concluded that Harry must have been involved in a different war from the Taliban's "historic struggle".

"He never participated in a war operation so that's why he can't see the UK casualties, the UK economic damages and the lost soldiers' lives in Helmand," he said.

In fact the prince is a strong supporter of charities supporting injured soldiers, including Help for Heroes. In 2011 he joined wounded servicemen in a fundraising trek to the North Pole.

Mujahid insisted he was not angry about Harry's remarks because "he doesn't have the brain to know there is a war here".

And he seized on reports that Harry was kept at a secure location last September when a team of 15 insurgents wearing US military uniforms and suicide vests sneaked on to Camp Bastion, the air base where the prince was deployed, killing two soldiers and destroying six Harrier jets.

"There were always bodyguards with him to protect him, always keeping him away from the area of war or making plans to keep him away," Mujahid said.The Taliban have claimed in the past that the prince was a target of their attack on the base.