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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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April 15th,
2007 - Marine Shooting in Afghanistan Decried |
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Marine Shooting in
Afghanistan Decried By Fisnik Abrashi Associated Press April 15, 2007 A U.S. Marine unit broke
international humanitarian law by using excessive force during a shooting
spree last month that left 12 people dead, an Afghan human rights group said
in a report Saturday. The troops fired
indiscriminately at pedestrians, people in cars, public buses and taxis in
six different locations along a 10-mile stretch of road in Nangahar province
after an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into their convoy on March 4,
according to the report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. Six people were killed near
the blast site, while the other six died on the road as the troops sped away,
said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's spokesman. The dead included a
1-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and three women, the report said.
Thirty-five people were wounded in the shootings. "In failing to
distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets the U.S.
Marines Corps Special Forces employed indiscriminate force," the report
said. "Their actions thus constitute a serious violation of
international humanitarian law standards." The group said its report
was based on interviews with victims and their families, witnesses, local
community leaders, hospital officials and police. A U.S. military commander
has also determined that the Marines used excessive force and referred the
case for possible criminal inquiry, a senior U.S. defense official told The
Associated Press on Wednesday. U.S. military officials said
after the incident that the suicide attack was part of an ambush that
included militant gunmen shooting at Marines, which may have caused some of
the civilian casualties. The human rights group's
report said "there is some evidence at the immediate site of the
incident to support this claim, but it is far from conclusive and all
witnesses and Afghan government officials interviewed uniformly denied that
any attack beyond the initial (suicide car bombing) took place." The group also alleges that
U.S. troops serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force in
southern Afghanistan returned to the area after the bombing for an
investigation and a cleanup operation, which involved the removal of all
bullet shells and cartridges. The group said it
interviewed a member of Afghanistan's National Police criminal investigations
office who said his unit had searched around the site after the incident, but
that "ISAF forces had collected all shells, magazines, cartridges from
the spot and we could not find any trace or sign of them." U.S. military officials were
not available to comment on that allegation. Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has repeatedly pleaded for Western troops to show more restraint amid
concern that civilian deaths shake domestic support for the foreign military
involvement that he needs to prop up his government, increasingly under
threat from a resurgent Taliban. The initial U.S. military
investigation concluded that the Marines' response was "out of
proportion to the threat that was immediately there," the senior U.S.
defense official said Wednesday in Washington. The official spoke on
condition of anonymity because the probe's results have not been released.
The findings have been forwarded to U.S. Central Command, which has
responsibility for U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Central
Asia. Another official, also
speaking on condition of anonymity, said the initial military investigation
concluded that there was a "reasonable suspicion" the Marines
violated the rules for the use of deadly force, and that crimes, possibly
including homicide, may have been committed in the aftermath of the convoy
being struck. One Marine was wounded in
the blast, which also killed the bomber. Army Maj. Gen. Francis H.
Kearney III, head of Special Operations Command Central, opened an
investigation into the incident after taking the highly unusual step of
ordering the unit of about 120 Marines out of Afghanistan. "We deeply regret the
loss of life and casualties that resulted from the (suicide car bombing) and
the actions that followed," Lt. Col. Lou Leto, spokesman at Kearney's
command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., said in a statement. "We will work
to prevent similar events from occurring in the future." The Marines are in a special
operations unit that deployed from Camp LeJeune, N.C., in January with the
26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. After Kearney ordered them out of
Afghanistan, they returned to their unit's ships in the Persian Gulf. The unit is one of four
Marine Special Operations Command companies established since the command was
created in February 2006. The one ordered out of Afghanistan was the first to
deploy abroad. Copyright © 2007 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. External link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_re_as/afghan_marines_shooting |