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April 20th,
2007 - Killings of Afghan Civilians Recall Haditha News
article by the New York Times |
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Killings of
Afghan Civilians Recall Haditha By Paul von Zielbauer New York Times April 20, 2007 After it became clear last
year that several marines had killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, following
an attack on their convoy of Humvees, the Marine Corps, which had initially
played down the massacre, began an offensive of a different kind. Last May, Gen. Michael W.
Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps at the time, went to Iraq to
express deep concern to his marines and to reinforce what he called the “core
values” that required them to respond to danger with thoughtful precision. But almost a year later,
marines killed at least 10 civilians in Afghanistan in an episode that bore
some striking similarities to the Haditha killings and suggested that the
lesson had not taken, even in a platoon of combat veterans wearing the badge
of the elite new Marine Corps Special Operations forces. Marine Corps officials said
the unit, whose members undergo at least four months of specialized military
training, did not receive specific values training addressing the lessons of
Haditha. The actions of the 30 marines on patrol in Afghanistan appeared to
contradict many of the edicts General Hagee had implored the marines to
remember. “We use lethal force only
when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful,” General Hagee
declared in a series of talks he gave at Marine bases around the world. “We
must regulate force and violence,” he added. “We protect the noncombatants we
find on the battlefield.” A preliminary military
investigation found that the marines killed at least 10 civilians and wounded
dozens along a stretch of road near Jalalabad on March 4, and no evidence
that they were being fired upon. The killings illustrate the
difficulty American forces have encountered in fighting an enemy who often
wears no uniform, uses civilians for cover and understands the limits of the
American military’s strict rules of engagement. But they also show how hard
it can be for officers to control the actions of heavily armed troops in the
heat of battle. As the marines did in
Haditha, those on patrol in Afghanistan began shooting at civilians in
reaction to an attack, in this case a suicide bomber who drove into their
convoy as it traveled to Jalalabad from Torkham and detonated his explosives,
said Lt. Col. Lou Leto, a spokesman for Army Maj. Gen. Frank Kearney, the
commander of all American Special Operations forces in the region. “When the marines recovered
from the blast, they thought they were taking fire, so they returned fire,”
Colonel Leto said Wednesday, paraphrasing findings of the inquiry, in which
the marines and civilian witnesses had been interviewed. As the convoy sped away,
several marines shot at people near the side of the road, in cars on the
shoulders or working in fields nearby, Colonel Leto said. As they did in
Haditha, the marines near Jalalabad overreacted to the initial attack, the
investigation suggests, firing at unarmed civilians who happened to be
nearby. “The evidence that we found
was that they just weren’t fighters,” Colonel Leto said. “They saw people in
the fields. They thought these people were carrying weapons, but they could
have been tools.” Colonel Leto said by
telephone from the United Arab Emirates that the marines had fired on several
cars. “Some cars they thought were taking aggressive actions, another was not
following directions,” he said. “You can imagine, you are hit with a pretty
good blast, the air gets sucked out of you, you have to make judgment calls
real quick.” The military report found
that the marines had killed 10 people, including an elderly man and a young
woman, and wounded 33 others. But a report by the Afghanistan Independent
Human Rights Commission said the marines had killed 12 people and wounded 35. As in Haditha, many of the
civilians killed in Afghanistan were women and children, a detailed report by
the human rights group said. General Kearney ordered the
entire company, the first Special Forces unit sent into battle since the
Marines Special Operations command was formed 14 months ago, to leave
Afghanistan at the beginning of April, Colonel Leto said. He also referred
the matter to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The platoon involved in the
ambush and subsequent killings was responsible for gathering intelligence in
the field and capturing or killing enemy fighters, said Maj. Cliff Gilmore, a
spokesman for the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. The marines
were drawn from a Marine Force Reconnaissance unit and have an average of
seven years of military experience and more than 15 months of combat
experience in Iraq or Afghanistan. Colonel Leto said, “They were still new on
the scene.” He declined to say how many marines had fired or possibly killed
civilians but, without elaborating, he said marines being questioned have
been “separated” from the unit. All marines get instructions
on the laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and the rules of
engagement, which require positive identification of hostile intent before
shooting. But General Kearney’s month-long investigation seems to indicate
that those rules were violated by an elite unit, military officers said. “You do ask, ‘How did this
happen?’” said an officer familiar with the inquiry, speaking on condition of
anonymity. “And it’s a fair question.” Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/world/asia/20abuse.html |