SAYED ABAD/TEHRAN -- Several hundred Afghan villagers shouted “death to the United States” and blocked a main road in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, saying U.S. forces had killed three innocent people, officials said.

Elders from Zarin Khil village said American troops stormed into a family's house and gun down three young men -- brothers -- and then took their father into custody, district Police Chief Abdul Karim Abed said.
Thursday's attack happened before dawn in Wardak province's Sayed Abad district -- a Taliban-dominated area where Afghan police can only go with very tight security, according to Abed, The Associated Press reported.
The U.S. attack on Afghan civilians came just two days after the United Nations released a midyear report that found civilian deaths had spiked 31 percent in 2010 over the same period last year.
“We are worried. We are very concerned about the future because the human cost of this conflict is unfortunately being paid too heavily by the civilian Afghans,” UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura told a news conference in Kabul. “Afghan children and women are increasingly bearing the brunt of this conflict. They are being killed and injured in their homes and communities in greater numbers than ever before,” Agence France-Presse quoted De Mistura saying.
Elders deny claims of fighting
According to the Afghan elders, there was no fighting before the troops entered the house, Abed said.
Early Thursday morning, men from the village started to gather in the main market of Sayed Abad to protest the alleged civilian killings, Abed said. The men blocked the main highway going through the area and burned two trucks belonging to Afghan private security contractors, local police officer Abed said.
Abed said he did not have more detailed information because he was unable to leave the police compound.
“If we go out, maybe fighting will start,” he said.
An AFP reporter confirmed that traffic had been held up for several hours because of the protest.
“Last night coalition and Afghan forces went to a house to capture a Taliban commander. During the attack unfortunately three civilians were killed,” provincial spokesman Shahedullah Shahed told AFP.
U.S. kills civilians to intimidate people
A U.S. writer and radio host says that the country's killing of civilians in Afghanistan serves the purpose of public intimidation.
“There have been many, many thousands of Afghan civilians, men, women and children deliberately targeted, deliberately killed to intimidate the population,” Stephen Lendman told Press TV on Thursday.
“Things go back, I believe, to World War II, to intimidate the opposition. We did it ruthlessly in Vietnam, and the most well-known Operation Phoenix, with the estimated number of civilians that we killed, numbered maybe 80,000. The number could have been doubled,” he added.
He said the United States military presences in Iraq and Afghanistan is tantamount to war crime.
“There is no question of war crimes being committed … our presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan is a war crime; both wars are illegal. We violated international law. We violated U.S. law. We violated the US Constitution by being there. These are war crimes. Every day by being there, we have committed war crimes, because we have committed crimes against humanity. We deliberately target civilians. There is nothing about random civilian killings,” he added.
Lendman is a prolific writer on domestic and international issues with damning pieces of criticism on the American military interventions and Israeli acts of violence.
Photo: Afghan villagers shout anti- U.S. slogans following the U.S. raid in Sayed Abad district of Wardak province, Afghanistan, Aug. 12, 2010. (AP photo)