Hmm , if Panetta is afraid of being in the presence of armed marines in Afghanistan , what does that say about the state of the mission there ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9144379/Soldiers-asked-to-disarm-during-Leon-Panetta-speech.html

Less than a week after a US staff sergeant allegedly massacred 16 civilians in Kandahar, American soldiers were banned from bringing guns into a talk by Mr Panetta at a base in Helmand province.

Around 200 troops who had gathered in a tent at Camp Leatherneck were told "something had come to light" and asked abruptly to file outside and lay down their automatic rifles and 9mm pistols.

"Somebody got itchy, that's all I've got to say. Somebody got itchy – we just adjust," said the sergeant who was told to clear the hall of weapons.

Major General Mark Gurganus later said he gave the order because Afghan troops attending the talk were unarmed and he wanted the policy to be consistent for all.

"You've got one of the most important people in the world in the room," he told the New York Times, insisting that the decision was unrelated to Sunday's killings. "This is not a big deal."

However, US troops often remain armed even when their Afghan colleagues have been asked to lay down their weapons and the incident is believed to be the first time they were stripped of guns during an address by their own secretary of defence.

The Ministry of Defence was unable to confirm reports that a small number of British troops had also been asked to put down their weapons.

Mr Panetta told the troops that the massacre of civilians and the resulting Afghan fury would not affect plans to keep US troops in the country until the end of 2014.

"We will be challenged by our enemies, we will be challenged by ourselves, we will be challenged by the hell of war itself," he said.

and despite saying a transparent process would apply - out of the country goes the unnmaed shooter and thr trial certainly won't be held in Afghanistan......

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9144829/Afghan-fury-as-US-soldier-accused-of-massacre-is-flown-to-Kuwait.html

The military said the unnamed staff sergeant had been transferred because there were no suitable facilities for long-term detention in Afghanistan, but the move signalled the US's desire to prevent the criminal case against him from becoming a flashpoint for further violence.

The decision has provoked fury in Afghanistan, where MPs have demanded that the soldier be handed over to the Afghan justice system and called on President Hamid Karzai to suspend all talks with the US until that happens.

“It was the demand of the families of the martyrs of this incident, the people of Kandahar and the people of Afghanistan to try him publicly in Afghanistan,” said Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai, a Kandahar lawmaker who is part of a parliamentary commission investigating the shootings.

Abdul Khaliq Balakarzai, another Kandahar lawmaker, said President Hamid Karzai should respond to the US decision to move the soldier by refusing to sign a strategic partnership agreement governing the presence of US soldiers in the country after most combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

“If the trial was in Afghanistan, the people would see that America doesn’t like this soldier and wants to punish him,” said Mr Balakarzai. “But unfortunately America ignored our demand.”

Haji Abdul Ghani, a tribal elder from the area of Panjwai district where the shooting spree occurred warned the U.S. move would cause “people to rise up and increase the hostility between Afghanistan and America.”

The US informed Afghan leaders that the soldier was going to be moved and “they understood,” said US Lt Gen Curtis Scaparotti, deputy commander of American forces in Afghanistan.

Many fear a misstep by the US military in handling the case could ignite a firestorm in Afghanistan that would shatter already tense relations between the two countries. The alliance appeared near breaking point last month when the burning of Korans in a garbage pit at a US base sparked protests and retaliatory attacks that killed more than 30 people, including six US soldiers.

In recent days the two nations made headway toward an agreement governing a long-term American presence here, but the massacre in Kandahar province on Sunday has called all such negotiations into question.

Afghan lawmakers have demanded that the soldier be publicly tried in Afghanistan to show that he was being brought to justice, calling on President Hamid Karzai to suspend all talks with the US until that happens.

The soldier was held by the US military in Kandahar until Wednesday evening, when he was flown out of Afghanistan to Kuwait "based on a legal recommendation," said Navy Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman.

"We do not have appropriate detention facilities in Afghanistan," Mr Kirby said, explaining that he was referring to a facility for a US service member "in this kind of case."

Captain Kirby said the transfer did not necessarily mean the trial would be held outside Afghanistan, but Pentagon sources said it was unlikely he would be returned there.

The decision to remove the soldier from the country may complicate the prosecution, said Michael Waddington, an American military defense lawyer who represented a ringleader of the 2010 thrill killings of three Afghan civilians by soldiers from the same Washington state base as the accused staff sergeant.

The prosecutors won't be able to use statements from Afghan witnesses unless the defense is able to cross-examine them, he said.

Waddington said the decision to remove the suspect was likely a security call.

"His presence in the country would put himself and other service members in jeopardy," Waddington said.

The Kuwait detention facilities have been used for other US troops. The most prominent detainee recently was Army PFC Bradley Manning, who was held there after he was taken into custody in Baghdad in 2010 for allegedly leaking government documents in the WikiLeaks case.

The US staff sergeant allegedly slipped out of his small base in southern Afghanistan before dawn, crept into three houses and shot men, women and children at close range then burned some of the bodies. By sunrise, there were 16 corpses.

Some Afghan officials and residents in the villages that were attacked have insisted there was more than one shooter. If the disagreement persists, it could deepen the distrust between the two countries.

Panetta, in a series of meetings with troops and Afghan leaders Wednesday, said the U.S. must never lose sight of its mission in the war, despite recent violence including what appeared to be an attempted attack near the runway of a military base where he was about to land.

It wasn't clear whether it was an attempt to attack the defense chief, whose travel to southern Afghanistan was not made public before he arrived. Panetta was informed of the incident after landing.

"We will not allow individual incidents to undermine our resolve to that mission," he told about 200 Marines at Camp Leatherneck. "We will be tested we will be challenged, we'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war itself. But none of that, none of that, must ever deter us from the mission that we must achieve."

According the Pentagon spokesman, an Afghan stole a vehicle at a British airfield in southern Afghanistan and drove it onto a runway, crashing into a ditch about the same time that Leon Panetta's aircraft was landing.

The pickup truck drove at high speed onto the ramp where Panetta's plane was intended to stop, Kirby said. No one in Panetta's party was injured.

and if you thought the one shooter story was resolved , it still isn't cleared up yet as the segment put forth below shows....

The surveillance video, taken from an overhead blimp that films the area around the base, shows a soldier in a U.S. uniform approaching the south gate of the base with a traditional Afghan shawl hiding the weapon in his hand, the Afghan official said.

He then removes the shawl as he lays his weapon on the ground and raises his arms in surrender.

The soldier reportedly told officers that he was responsible for the killings, simply saying: 'I did it.'

The official had not been shown any footage of the soldier leaving the base. The official spoke anonymously to discuss a private briefing.

One member of an Afghan government delegation investigating the killings said Wednesday that the group has concluded the shooting spree was carried out by more than one soldier. Parliament member Sayeed Ishaq Gilani said the delegation had heard from villagers who said they saw more than 15 troops at the scene.

But it's unclear whether the soldiers the villagers saw were part of a search party that left the base to look for the U.S. soldier who was missing. The delegation is slated to formally release the results of its investigation later today.

On Tuesday, the delegation visited the two villages in Kandahar province where the shootings took place. Two villagers who lost relatives insisted that at least two soldiers took part in the shootings.

U.S. military officials continue to believe that only one soldier was involved.

and....

http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistans-karzai-calls-nato-leave-villages-114947099.html

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai called on Thursday for NATO-led forces to move out of Afghan villages and remote areas after a rogue U.S. soldier gunned down 16 civilians in the volatile southern province of Kandahar.

and...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Taliban militant group says it is suspending talks with the United States.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement Thursday that the United States kept changing the terms of the negotiations.

Mujahid says that the Taliban only wanted to discuss prisoner transfers and the establishment of a political office in Qatar, but U.S. negotiators wanted to broaden the discussion. Mujahid says they did not want the Afghan government included in the talks.

*   *   *   *   

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Afghan president said Thursday that international troops should pull back from rural areas and villages to main bases and that Afghan troops should take the lead for countrywide security in 2013, a year ahead of the current target date.

Karzai's statement, issued after he met with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the capital, comes in the wake of an alleged shooting spree by a rogue U.S. soldier who is accused of murdering 16 Afghan villagers Sunday before dawn.

"Afghan security forces have the ability to keep the security in rural areas and in villages on their own," Karzai said in the statement. He made the same comments to Panetta in their meeting, it said.

Karzai told Panetta that the weekend shootings in southern Afghanistan were cruel and that everything must be done to prevent any such incidents in the future. As part of this, the international forces should speed up their transfer of authority to Afghan troops, he said.