Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has addressed a press conference where he admonished NATO forces in his country not to allow it to be seen as an occupying force by the people they wanted to protect.

He said on Tuesday that if the rate of civilian casualties in NATO attack continues the people of Afghanistan will no longer see the force as an ally but as an occupying force even as he warned that he would take an unspecified action if the civilian casualties are to continue.

He said that they would no longer allow NATO to raid homes in pursuant of insurgents adding that the patients of the people on such tactics had expired. He said that if that happen they will see NATO no longer as an ally but as an occupying force.

The outburst of Mr. Karzai is to distance himself from the western troops who had been in the country for almost a decade fighting Taliban. He wanted to be seen in new light in the country as the champion of the people of Afghanistan. There is widening resentment of the continued stay of NATO in the country and the repeated civilian casualties in the campaigns are not helping things either.