The Afghan National Security Council has raised the stakes in the aftermath of this week’s alleged Kunar massacre, calling for NATO to hand over the responsible parties immediately to Afghan authorities.

NATO continues to change its story on Tuesday morning’s pre-dawn raid in the Kunar Province, which killed 10 Afghan civilians, eight of them children, and has led to massive protests against the international military effort.

Initially NATO officials insisted there were no operations going on in Kunar at all, though later they privately admitted US special forces were in the area. This story morphed into claims that it was a US military operation that killed an “IED cell” and that they had no proof of any civilian deaths.

Now, NATO says the operation was not military in nature, but rather was a “sanctioned” operation conducted by “non-military Americans” and that the children were all killed in self defense.

Whether “non-military Americans” entails contractors, like Blackwater, or CIA agents as were attacked yesterday in Khost remains to be seen. It is clear however that there is more than meets the eye to these killings, which locals insist involved the killers dragging the children out of bed and even handcuffing some of them before shooting them.