When Ismail Nemati set out from Kabul last week to join his family in nearby Wardak province for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, friends said, his biggest fear was running into Taliban forces who might question his allegiances.
Before sunrise the next day, Nemati lay bleeding in his family guest room, alongside two of his brothers, all shot dead by U.S. special forces who were on the hunt for a Taliban leader.
Their deaths sparked a vitriolic anti-American protest and generated a backlash against the dramatic spike in special forces raids, which have become a crucial element of President Barack Obama's strategy in Afghanistan.
The number of secretive raids that target anti-Western insurgents has skyrocketed. NATO officials said this week that special forces are taking part in 1,000 operations in Afghanistan each month, a threefold increase over last year.
In most cases, American military officials say, the raids end without a shot being fired. It's the small number of questionable raids, such as the recent one in Wardak, that Afghans remember, however.
"He was not Taliban," Omid Ali, 21, said in broken English about his school friend Nemati. "I want to say to President Obama: Afghanistan doesn't have hostility towards foreign forces, but, these mistakes, that is how they will be defeated in Afghanistan."
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