Word: shaheem
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There are large-scale civilian deaths in Afghanistan that make headlines, and then there are the small incidents that are barely noticed at all. That was the fate of 12-year-old Benafsha Shaheem...
Photos of the Shaheem family's vehicle show that multiple bullets passed through both the front and rear windshields. Afghan investigators point out that the incident took place in daylight, in moving traffic on a main road, and that most of the passengers were women. Given these facts, they say, it's hard to gauge why shots were fired. A coalition spokesman in Kabul said he was not free to discuss the shooting in more detail because of an ongoing probe. (Watch TIME's video "The Challenge on the Ground in Afghanistan...
Contacted by phone, Aref Shaheem, Benafsha's father, angrily said that coalition forces were "only killing people." They claim to be in the country to protect Afghans, he says, but they continue to take innocent lives. "They can't be trusted." As a result, he argues, the Taliban in his area only grows stronger. He says it was little consolation to learn the soldiers responsible for his daughter's death were punished, as investigators say they were told. (The coalition would not confirm this.) She is gone, he says, and so is any vestige of faith he had left...
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