US soldiers killed despite Obama Koran apology

"Under growing domestic political pressure, Mr Obama insisted that that his formal letter of apology to Afghan president Hamid Karzai had "calmed things down".

"We're not out of the woods yet," he told ABC News. "The reason that [the letter] was important is the same reason that the commander on the ground, General Allen, apologised. And that is to save lives. And to make sure our troops who are there right now are not placed in further danger."

With this statement, Obama has in effect, given up totally.

FROM TELEGRAPH.CO.UK:

US soldiers killed despite Obama Koran apology

Barack Obama has defended his decision to apologise for the burning of copies of the Koran at a US airbase in Afghanistan even as two more American soldiers were killed.

By Raf Sanchez in Washington and Ben Farmer in Kabul

6:52PM GMT 01 Mar 2012

An Afghan soldier and a literacy teacher opened fire on US forces yesterday morning in the latest incident of local troops turning their arms against their Nato allies.

The shooting means that of the 60 international troops killed this year, one in five has died at the hands of Afghan forces.

A total of six Americans and more than 30 Afghans have now been killed since the US admitted last week that it accidentally incinerated copies of the Islamic holy book at Bagram airfield.

Despite public apologies from both Mr Obama and General John Allen, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, the violence has continued.

Under growing domestic political pressure, Mr Obama insisted that that his formal letter of apology to Afghan president Hamid Karzai had "calmed things down".

"We're not out of the woods yet," he told ABC News. "The reason that [the letter] was important is the same reason that the commander on the ground, General Allen, apologised. And that is to save lives. And to make sure our troops who are there right now are not placed in further danger."

Speaking shortly before a White House dinner to honour US troops returning from Iraq, Mr Obama said that the latest violence would not derail plans for Nato forces to withdraw by the end of 2014.

"That doesn't mean there aren't going to be tragic incidents, that doesn't mean there aren't going to be some bumps in the road. We've been there for over a decade now and that creates strains but the trajectory we have now is one that I feel confident we can carry out," he said.

The latest killings in the southern province of Kandahar took place outside of a base manned jointly by US and Afghan forces. Both of the gunmen were killed in a firefight.

The shooting took place as a small number of foreign advisers returned to work in the government ministries from which they had been withdrawn after an Afghan policeman killed two US senior officers on Saturday.

The close-range killing inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul stunned Nato and led to fresh questions about the US strategy of embedding small numbers of advisers in Afghan government departments and military units.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato's secretary general, said alliance forces were showing "great restraint" in face of increasingly frequents attacks by the Afghan troops.