News - Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said that Afghanistan will not sign a strategic partnership deal with the US until Nato night raids and house searches stop.

"Arbitrary operations and home searches have been a serious problem between Nato and Afghanistan for several years," Karzai said in a statement. "This has been one of the main obstacles for signing the Afghanistan-US strategic partnership pact."

His comments come after he heard back from a government appointed delegation assigned to look into civilian casualties sustained during recent Nato air strikes and night time raids.

The strategic partnership document being negotiated with Washington will govern the relationship between American troops and the Afghan government after the scheduled withdrawal of combat troops in 2014.

Last month 2,000 delegates from across the country gathered at Traditional Loya Jirga supported Afghan and US long-term strategic partnership.

Nato has defended the operations as the safest way of targeting insurgent leaders, insisting they will continue but with the increasing involvement of Afghan special forces.

It insists that in 85 percent of night raids no shot is fired and they cause less than one percent of civilian casualties.