KABUL: Social frustration, anger at the arrogance of US troops and sheer criminality were fuel for the violent demonstrations that engulfed the Afghan capital, analysts said on Tuesday.

Hundreds of mostly young men armed with knives, wooden posts and spades rampaged through the city, torching cars and buildings and looting the offices of businesses and international organisations.

“Probably quite a lot of what you saw (on Monday) was frustration,” a western military analyst said, pointing to the population explosion in Kabul since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 and high rate of unemployment.

The catalyst was an accident caused by an out-of-control US military truck that ploughed into civilian vehicles in the north of the city in the morning rush hour, killing six people.

An angry crowd at the scene started pelting the American troops with stones. The soldiers opened fire and Afghan police joined in as the mob swelled. Eight people were killed in the subsequent shooting.

Demonstrations erupted across the city, with about 1,500 men chanting ‘Death to America’ and trying to force their way into areas containing embassies and international offices.

Paul Barker, country director for Care International — which was torched and looted — said frustration at the lack of significant change since the fall of the Taliban, despite billions of dollars in aid, played some part.

“Expectations were so high in 2002, they would have been impossible to meet,” Mr Barker said.

However the bulk of the violence was caused by a large ‘criminal element’, he said.

“Riots get started and are really hard to stop,” he said, adding there was also annoyance with aggressive US military patrols.

“In a way it was an accident waiting to happen, but I don’t think anybody thought it would be on this scale,” he said.

While citizens had the right to protest, most of those who took to the streets were aware of the traffic accident, said shopkeeper Bahram Sarwary, 33.

“There is a big number of youth in the capital who are like a pile of gunpowder — they just need an ignition and they can explode any minute,” he said, referring to ‘looters, criminals, the unemployed and uneducated’.

The incident played into the hands of Taliban, who would use it to suggest the nation was not happy with the presence of foreign troops or with the government, which was not the case, he said.

Human rights commissioner Nader Nadery said some of the demonstrators were known members of illegal armed groups who had been waiting for an opportunity to create disorder.

“There are criminal groups and those who are not happy with the political developments mainly because of their marginalisation,” said Nadery, from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

“They still have their guns and they were trying to use this opportunity to do something,” he said.

He said that while some foreign interests were looted and damaged, more property owned by Afghans was destroyed — which he said meant the violence did not reflect anti-international feelings.

“But at the same time the ignorance and aggressive behaviour US forces display on the streets increases anger,” he said, adding that memories were also fresh of a western strike in Kandahar province that killed 34 civilians.

Political analyst Waheed Mujda said the violence was a reflection of indignation about the arrogance of US forces.

“The American soldiers are behaving pretty much against the culture and the beliefs of the people... this will cost Mr Karzai,” he said. —AFP