LONDON: The reputation of Britain’s peacekeeping force in Afghanistan was under threat on Sunday night after claims that a party of Afghans rushing a pregnant relative to hospital were shot at in an unprovoked attack by British troops which left one dead and four injured.

The British military was taking the allegations seriously and, along with Afghan police, launched an urgent investigation yesterday (SUN) into the shooting. Mohammad Ishaq, 25, described how he and his family - including brother Hamyoon, 20 - defied a curfew to drive to a Kabul hospital in the early hours of Saturday after his wife went into labour with their first child.

They had just got into the car when they were engulfed in a sudden and deadly hail of gunfire - allegedly from British troops concealed in the darkness at the top of an observation tower several hundred metres away.

“There was no warning. We didn’t even know there were soldiers there. Then bullets started hitting the car. The firing went on for about three minutes. We all crouched down. After a minute I shouted to my brother, “Are you OK?” But he didn’t answer,” Ishaq said. “When I peered up I saw that he was dead. He had been hit in the back of the head by a bullet. The bullet had come out through his front temple. The women were crying and shrieking and screaming. The neighbours came out when the firing stopped and dragged my brother’s body into our house.”

Ishaq’s 21-year-old wife, Faria, suffered shrapnel wounds to her neck and knee. Shocked and bleeding, she staggered home where she gave birth to a boy. Ishaq said his son appeared to be healthy despite the traumatic manner of his birth. He did not yet have a name. Col Neal Peckham, spokesman for the British-led international security assistance force (ISAF) here, insisted on Sunday that his paratroopers had returned fire. But neighbours and family members of the dead student derided the claim. “This is ridiculous. They didn’t have any weapons. They were trying to go to hospital,” a cousin, Naser Ullah, said. “Mohammad’s wife was about to have her baby.”

The British soldiers had been on duty in an observation post hidden in the 45-metre-high tower of a derelict Russian bakery, near the hilltop Inter-Continental hotel, here.

An ISAF spokesman confirmed the paratroopers were equipped with night-vision equipment. The car was nearly 700 metres away in the dark - across a large muddy field dotted with pine trees. Ishaq’s house is one of several on a steep slope, above a disused swimming pool.

Ishaq, a teacher, said on Sunday that he was aware of the strict 9.30pm curfew here but claimed it was not uncommon for vehicles to move later than that in times of emergency. He said he sent his brother to a neighbour’s house when his wife started feeling contractions shortly before 2am on Saturday. The neighbour got out of bed and started up his Toyota Corolla. Ishaq then helped his wife down the slope to the car. He sat in the back with his wife and mother, while his brother and the neighbour, who was driving, sat in the front, he recalled.

“We had just got in when the firing started. My mother was shot in the neck and shoulder. My wife was shot in the hand and our neighbour was hit in the face. I was shot in the right arm - the bullet grazed me and came straight out,” he said, holding out his bandaged arm. “We had no idea the soldiers were there. There was no warning, no shouting, nothing.” Ishaq said he then struggled back up the slope to his house, while neighbours carried his brother’s body. “We tried to stop the bleeding with some bandages. At 3.30am some people arrived saying, “We are doctors.” By then my wife had given birth, to a son.” Col Peckham said Afghan and British military investigators were unlikely to reach any firm conclusions for a “couple of weeks”. He confirmed the six Parachute Regiment soldiers had not been relieved from duty. “They are at liberty,” he said.

Under their rules of engagement, sanctioned by the UN, members of the international force can fire in self-defence or to protect the lives of others in imminent danger of being killed. If the investigation concluded the paratroopers were being “trigger happy”, they would be in “serious trouble”, a defence official said. The incident could prove extremely damaging to ISAF’s reputation among ordinary Afghans. The peacekeeping force arrived in Kabul to bring law and order to the country. Britain agreed to take the lead role in ISAF for a three-month period, which ends in April. Afghanistan’s interim leader, Hamid Karzai, wants the peacekeeping operation extended to other parts of Afghanistan, a plea the US and Britain have so far rejected.

But the gruesome murder of Afghanistan’s aviation minister, Abdul Rahman, last week dramatically underlined ISAF’s limitations. A contingent of eight ISAF soldiers was less than half a kilometre away when the killing took place at Kabul airport. A forensic team has already taken away the bullet-ridden car involved in Saturday’s shooting for examination. The team also retrieved dozens of bullets from the scene.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.