Cops Fish With Rockets, Kill 6 Swimming Kids

A group of Afghan policemen with more weapons than sense went fishing with rocket-propelled grenades and ended up hauling in a catch of six dead children, officials tell the New York Times. The boys, aged from 9 to 14, were killed when the cops fishing on the other side of a river fired a RPG that went astray and landed in a group of swimmers, officials say. "The person who fired the rocket did not mean to shoot at the children," the lawmaker representing the area says. "He was fishing, but unfortunately his shot did not hit the target."

Six policemen were arrested, including the alleged shooter—their commander, who happens to be the son of a local warlord. The warlord says the children were killed by detonating a piece of unexploded ordinance, but his claim is rejected by the local mayor, whose 14-year-son was among those killed. "We don’t know why they fired the rocket—maybe they were just insane," the mayor says. "Everyone has a different story, but we know that it wasn’t an unexploded mortar that the kids exploded. Our children have been killed like birds." (More Afghanistan stories.)