|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
May 12th,
2007 - Afghans Growing Irate Over Casualties |
|
Afghans Growing Irate Over
Casualties U.S.-Led Raids Help Insurgents, Observers Warn By Pamela Constable Washington Post May 12, 2007; A10 Ghanikel, Afghanistan - The
mud-walled village compound was silent except for a chorus of tiny frogs in
the surrounding fields. Inside, ghosts lurked. A pile of stones had been
carefully mounded over the bloodstains where Janat Gul, 40, died. A trampled
patch of opium poppy plants indicated where Mir Warid, 13, fell. The living were almost as
silent. A girl of 3 held up her bandaged arm, staring mutely at a group of
visitors last week. A leathery woman squatted and frowned, surrounded by
motherless children now in her care. Suddenly, she began speaking in an angry
torrent. "The soldiers killed my
mother-in-law, then my father-in-law. I begged to touch him, but they shouted
at me not to come close. Then they left me alone with the children, crying
for help," said Khanum Agha, 25. "The foreigners are supposed to be
protecting us, but instead they come and kill us in our beds." Early May 2, U.S. Special
Operations units surrounded and attacked the compound here in the eastern
province of Nangahar, believing it was being used by insurgents as a bomb
factory, according to Afghan news reports. They arrested one man and
displayed 120 kilograms (about 265 pounds) of captured explosive materials on
local television broadcasts. In the raid, they killed six civilians,
including two women and a girl of 13, according to witnesses. The raid was one of a series
of recent U.S.-led military attacks that have resulted in civilian
casualties, provoking angry public protests. In the latest incident, a U.S.
airstrike Wednesday on a Taliban stronghold in Sangin, in the southern
province of Helmand, killed 21 civilians, Afghan officials said. That attack
brought to at least 90 the number of civilian deaths attributed to friendly
foreign troops in the past month. Almost every day, warplanes
drop bombs, shoot rockets and fire cannon rounds into suspected enemy
locations in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Generally, there tend to be
more airstrikes in Afghanistan than in the war in Iraq. Since the beginning
of this month, according to data released by Central Command, the U.S.
military headquarters for Afghanistan, Iraq and the rest of the Middle East,
B-1 heavy bombers have struck Afghanistan four times, F-15 fighters have done
so twice, and A-10 ground-attack jets have fired their cannons three times.
Also, a British Royal Air Force Harrier jet carried out bombing. The airstrikes and
casualties are a direct result of the stepped-up Taliban insurgency, which
employs suicide bombs and often uses civilian areas as hiding places. Yet
according to diplomats and human rights groups, the tough military response
is weakening Afghan support for foreign troops and playing into the
insurgents' hands. President Hamid Karzai, sharply rebuking his foreign
allies, declared recently that such civilian deaths were "no longer
acceptable." The problem has also created
private tension and public confusion between the U.S. military mission of
some 20,000 troops that patrols eastern Afghanistan, hunting for Taliban and
al-Qaeda forces, and the separately commanded NATO mission of about the same
size that conducts counterinsurgency and humanitarian operations in the rest
of the country. On Tuesday, a senior U.S.
military commander issued a formal apology to the families of 19 civilians who
died in a March 4 incident in Batikot, in Nangahar province. A squad of
Marines, ambushed by a suicide bomber, sprayed indiscriminate gunfire at cars
and pedestrians. "We are deeply ashamed
and terribly sorry," said Col. John Nicholson, reading his apology
during a videoconference with reporters in Washington. He called the
shootings "a stain on our honor" and said, "This was a terrible,
terrible mistake. ... We humbly and respectfully ask for your
forgiveness." Nicholson said the incident
in Ghanikhel was under investigation, and U.S. military spokesmen in
Afghanistan said they could not comment on it. Yet another incident, a clash
April 28-29 between U.S. and Taliban forces at Shindand, in the western
province of Herat, that left up to 50 civilians dead, is also under
investigation by a variety of Afghan and U.S. delegations. It is not clear whether the
Ghanikhel raid was a case of mistaken identity or a successful anti-terrorist
operation that also became a human tragedy. In interviews, survivors, nearby
residents, legislators and other sources offered a murky, complicated picture
of almost every aspect of the raid, including who the victims were, what led
the Americans to suspect them, whether local authorities were informed of the
operation, and how public outrage was stirred up afterward. "There are at least
three different versions of what happened, and all of them seem to have
elements of untruth," said Babrak Shinwari, a member of parliament from
the Shinwar District, where both the Marine shootings and the village raid
occurred. "It is very difficult to learn the reality, so people believe
the worst." The Ghanikhel story includes
tribal disputes and the poisonous influence of opium poppy cultivation. It
also reflects the consequences of a cultural blunder by foreign troops
relating to Afghan sensitivity about women's honor, and the unseen hand of
Taliban forces swiftly capitalizing on public emotion. One puzzle is who the
occupants of the mud compound were. They described themselves to a journalist
as simple field hands and said they were doing nothing more harmful than
harvesting opium poppies when the attack came. They said they were refugees
from Kapisa province, north of Kabul. "Does this look like a
bomb factory to you?" demanded Sana Gul, 30, one of the survivors,
showing a reporter through the farm compound that was strung with laundry and
strewn with dirty sleeping cushions. "They said they found 120 kilos of
explosives, but we can't even afford 120 kilos of wheat." Government officials,
however, said that the group might be linked to a Taliban commander in Kapisa
and that the insurgents were becoming increasingly active in poppy-growing
areas of Nangahar. This is partly because insurgents have come under intense
military pressure in their home-base areas of southern Afghanistan. As recently as a year ago,
Nangahar had no major signs of insurgency and a record for eradicating poppy
crops while production soared in other provinces. Now, the road through the
district is lined with emerald poppy fields, and U.S. military forces have
been increasingly encountering insurgent activities. It is not clear, however,
whether U.S. forces have been involving Afghan civilian authorities or
security forces in their planning. Nangahar's governor said he was warned of
the Ghanikhel raid, but he was away at the time and many residents doubt his
claim. Most raids in residential areas are supposed to include Afghan
soldiers to act as a buffer, but survivors said the only Afghans they saw
were interpreters. The presence of Afghan
forces in U.S. and NATO military operations has been a key demand of
Karzai's. In addition to smoothing civilian relations, it can also help
foreign troops obtain accurate local information. On the other hand, Afghan
security forces can also tip off friends and allies, which may be why some
raids are conducted without them. "The Americans think
differently than we do. They see a 9/11 terrorist in every house; they want
to rush in and handcuff people," Shinwari said. "If they let the Afghan
forces go in first, they can prevent a lot of problems." The issue is especially
sensitive for officials from NATO countries, who fear that their wide welcome
by the Afghan citizenry may be sabotaged by the spate of civilian deaths.
Many Afghans cannot distinguish among foreign flags and uniforms; one
agitated shopkeeper near Ghanikhel ranted last week about the brutalities
committed by "British" troops. After the airstrike in Helmand this
week, local Afghan officials said it had been carried out by "NATO
forces," although NATO officials said they had no troops in the area. Daan Everts, the senior
civilian NATO representative in Kabul, said he believed most Afghans still
support foreign troops and, if anything, are fearful they will leave too
soon. But he also said the lack of Afghan involvement and slow explanations
by the U.S. military are hurting the broader image of foreign forces. The
apology for the March 4 shootings came a full two months after the incident. "We are not helping our
own cause as friendly forces by such incidents," Everts said. "When
information is not shared that could silence critics, it is to our own
detriment. And it is much better to have an Afghan knocking at the door than
heavily armed foreign soldiers knocking it down. It may be less effective,
but it's more acceptable and therefore better in the long run." In Ghanikhel, an effort by
the U.S. forces to make amends backfired badly. When the troops realized they
had shot a 3-year-old girl in the arm, they decided to take her to Bagram air
base for treatment. They also told a woman in the compound, through
interpreters, that she should accompany them to comfort the girl. The woman, Shirin Begum, 30,
told a journalist she was frightened but treated well while in American military
hands. But for local Afghan tribes, it is deeply dishonorable for women to
have contact or travel with unrelated men. Soon after the raid, rumors spread
that Begum had been kidnapped and raped by U.S. soldiers, infuriating a mob
that carried the victims' bodies through a nearby market town, shouting,
"Death to Bush!" "This is a terrible
shame for us, and this incident had a very bad impact on the people,"
said Abdul Mateen, 35, a teacher and shoemaker. "We do not want the
Taliban and al-Qaeda here, and the Americans have the right and duty to
search houses. But they must allow the local authorities to be involved, or
the people will rise up against them as they rose against the Russians." Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks
in Washington contributed to this report. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051102235.html |