UN report criticises covert troops who committed Afghan killings

[Robb]

Source: Times Online (UK)

Covert troops who killed two pregnant women and a teenage girl in eastern Afghanistan went on to inflict “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” on the survivors of a botched night raid, a report by the UN said.

The family of the victims in Paktiya province have accused Nato of trying to cover up the atrocity after an investigation by The Times revealed that two men, who were also killed, were not the intended targets of the raid. One was a police commander and his brother was a district-attorney.

The unpublished UN report, which was acquired by The Times, contradicts Nato’s version of events. Rear-Admiral Greg Smith, Nato’s communications director, had said that the women had been dead for several hours when US and Afghan gunmen started shooting into the family home.

The report, written in the aftermath of the February 12 attack, states: “As a result of the operation, five people were killed, two men and three women, all belonging to the same family.” There were about 25 guests and three musicians at the house on the night of the raid. They had gathered to celebrate the naming of a newborn child. It was only when a musician stepped outside to go to the lavatory at about 3.30am, that someone flashed a light in his eyes and he ran back inside shouting “Taleban”.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7063184.ece

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This is a follow-up piece to a story I've been pooh-poohing, but several phone calls later I'm told I should take Starkey (the author) seriously. So, here's his latest. Grain of salt if you want, but apparently he's got the contacts together to actually have pulled writing this story off, if it's true.

[skeptical cynic]

1. Like Vietnam

But without the folk singers and acoustic guitars and public outrage.

Where are Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Dusty Springfield and Joan Baez when we need them?

[Solly Mack]

2. k/r

[KoKo]

3. Guy who wrote "Black Hearts" about killing & Raping of 14 yr. old was on Dylan Ratigan's Show

On MSMNBC before Tweety Matthews tonight. It was good. The author of the book seemed to be sincere in his reporting of how our Troops are being Re-Deployed over and over so that they are exhausted and that "Killing" is what they are taught to do...and when they are tired...they feel it's the way they can survive.

He thinks we need to rethink how we deploy our military and the exhaustion and consequences of that will live with us for DECADES.

He's worth a listen to if you come across him.

[SlingBlade]

4. Covert Troops, That's short for Black Water

Change you can believe in .

[Robb]

5. We should be so lucky.

Blackwater/Xe has books, somewhere.

Covert ops fighting for a cause tend to do without.

[eridani]

6. Summary from Counterpunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff03152010.html

Another night-time raid on a housing compound in Afghanistan. Another bunch of innocent Afghans killed. Another round of lies by the US-led forces of the so-called International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF). Only this time, among the dead are two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl.

So what actually happened?

According to Starkey, US and Afghan Army forces on February 12 launched a pre-dawn assault on the home of a prominent and popular policeman’s home just outside of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan. The first person to die was reportedly the policeman himself, Commander Dawood, who had stood in his doorway protesting the innocence of his family. In the volley of fire directed against him by the brave US-led team, his pregnant wife, another pregnant woman and an 18-year-old girl were also slaughtered.

Commander Dawood had been hosting a party to celebrate the naming of a newborn baby boy, Starkey reported. As he writes:

Sitting together along the walls of a guest room, the men had taken turns dancing while musicians played. Mohammed Sediq Mahmoudi, 24, the singer, said that at some time after 3am one of the musicians, Dur
Mohammed, went outside to go to the toilet. “Someone shone a light on his face and he ran back inside and said the Taliban were outside,” Mr Sediq said.

<snip>

Rear Admiral Greg Smith, NATO's director of communications in Kabul, denied that there had been any attempt at a cover-up.

He said that both the men who were killed were armed and showing “hostile intent” but admitted “they were not the targets of this particular raid."

“I don’t know if they fired any rounds,” he said. “If you have got an individual stepping out of a compound, and if your assault force is there, that is often the trigger to neutralise the individual. You don’t have to be fired upon to fire back.”

He admitted that the original statement had been “poorly worded” but said “to people who see a lot of dead bodies” the women had appeared at the time to have been dead for several hours.