Afghan protesters shouted "Death to Canada" in a small village outside Kandahar city on Wednesday, but the Canadian military said it was not involved in raids that killed two local clerics.
"These two were not Taliban," one demonstrator told Â鶹´«Ã½. "They did nothing wrong."
Witnesses in the village of Senjaray, located west of the city, have given vague descriptions of troops breaking through doors in the middle of the night.
Communities in southern Afghanistan consider the violation of privacy in the home to be an even greater offence than in the West, according to a report in The Globe and Mail.
"Death to Canada, death to foreigners, death to Karzai!" shouted one protester.
The slain clerics were both members of the Alizai tribe, who have little or no place in President Hamid Karzai's government.
Most of the protesters Wednesday belonged to the same tribe.
One witness said the two clerics appeared to have been shot in the chest.
"They are arresting and killing innocent people," a tribal elder who attended the protest told the Globe.
Despite shouts of "Death to Canada," most of the roughly 500 protesters voiced anger at the United States or NATO in general.
"They're killing our young men,'' one villager told The Canadian Press through an interpreter.
"The day is not far when these innocent civilians will stand against NATO and other foreign troops."
Canadian officials said Canada was not involved in military raids late Tuesday night, and neither was the International Security Assistance Force.
Protesters accused Karzai's government of corruption and blamed the Afghan leader for allowing foreign troops into the country.
They also blamed local intelligence officers for misleading the soldiers who purportedly conducted the raids.
"Their informers are giving them wrong information," one villager told CP. "It is disgusting."
Another protester specifically blamed Canadians for wrongfully handing him over to local authorities.
"The Canadians arrested me last week," he alleged to Â鶹´«Ã½. "They handed me over to Afghan police, who put me in a cell with no electricity and no water. I am just a farmer."
Some protesters said known Taliban members attended the demonstration. The area is well known for attracting insurgents, who have ambushed NATO soldiers.
The United Nations and The Associated Press estimate that about 600 civilians have died this year during battles between soldiers and the Taliban. But the number is a rough estimate and it's unclear how many have been killed from insurgent attacks.
NATO forces have also said the Taliban falsely report civilian casualties to gain the trust of Afghans and undermine the efforts of foreign troops.
But Habibullah Jan, a lawmaker from Sanzari village, told AP that NATO soldiers were responsible for the raids.
He said that if foreign military personnel continued to target civilians, "people will take up arms against the government and NATO."
With a report from CTV's Steve Chao and files from The Canadian Press
