17 murder counts in Afghan village slaying

WASHINGTON -- Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder, assault and a string of other offenses in the massacre of Afghan villagers as they slept, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The charges signed against Bales include 17 counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of aggravated assault as well as dereliction of duty and other violations of military law, the official said on condition of anonymity because the charges had not been announced.

Bales, 38, a father of two who lives in Lake Tapps, Wash., will be charged with going on a shooting rampage in two villages near his southern Afghanistan military post in the early hours of March 11, gunning down nine Afghan children and eight adults and burning some of the victims' bodies.

The charges are to be read to Bales today at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where he is being held in a military prison and where he faces trial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The killings were yet another blow to U.S.-Afghan relations, following a series of missteps, including the accidental burning of Qurans, which prompted violent protests and revenge killings of American troops in the war zone.

As for the war, the top commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, told a Senate committee yesterday that he prefers a significant American force of 68,000 to combat insurgents in 2013, signaling a potential halt in the drawdown and complicating any effort by President Barack Obama to speed up troop withdrawals after more than a decade of war.