United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales will face 17 counts of murder and six counts of assault and attempted murder when he is charged on Friday for his alleged role in the murder of Afghan villagers, reported a U.S. senior official. Bales, 38, is accused of leaving a remote outpost in Kandahar province’s Panjwai district on March 11 and going on a deadly house to house raid. Initially, Afghan and U.S. officials reported that 16 people, including 9 children, were killed. The murder count is now 17, but the official that reported this number on Thursday, who remains under anonymity due to the nature of the case, could not explain why the number count went up.
Government officials in Kabul reported the death toll remained at 16 and they did not have a record of another death. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force refused to comment on the report of the pending charges. The inconsistency of the death toll will be explained when the charges are filed, reported Colonel Gary Kolb, an ISAF spokesman. A Kandahar provincial government spokesman, Ahmad Javed Faisal, reported that of the six people wounded in the rampage, two have been released from the hospital. Bales returned to the United States last week and is currently held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
