Karzai sacks top cops after Afghanistan riots

The shake-up may also include Kabul's police chief, Jamil Junbish, whose forces failed to prevent rioters from rampaging the city recently.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has sacked dozens of senior police officials in an effort to boost security in Kabul, an official said on Saturday, days after anti-US riots in the capital.

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The shake-up may also include Kabul's police chief, General Jamil Junbish, whose forces failed to prevent rioters from rampaging through the city on Monday after a US military truck crashed into Afghan vehicles and killed at least five people.

Karzai has ordered the replacement of more than 80 interior ministry generals, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The interior ministry said in a statement that 86 generals have been appointed for "improvement and maintenance of security and for necessary reforms in the ministry."

Police generals are in charge of precincts and departments within the Interior Ministry.

During Monday's protests against the US presence, rioters looted shops, besieged a television station, burned the offices of a US aid group, and broke windows of a new hotel before reaching the gates of parliament and the US embassy.

At least seven people were killed in the riots.

The top traffic police officer in the district where the accident happened said he saw US soldiers at the tail of a withdrawing convoy shoot three people as hundreds of people surged towards departing US vehicles.

Karzai put off a scheduled official overseas trip after the riots and a night time curfew has been force in Kabul since.