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TechnoratiAfghan Civilians Killed In Secret Raids, UN Official Says
KABUL, Afghanistan - A United Nations rights official alleged today that foreign intelligence agents were acting with impunity in Afghanistan and have taken part in secret raids that have killed civilians.
UN envoy Philip Alston said he was aware of at least three such recent raids in the country's south and east. He said no one was taking responsibility for the killings.
He did not name a particular country, but mentioned one raid in January, in which two Afghan brothers are suspected of having been killed, that was conducted by Afghans and personnel from a U.S. special forces base in Kandahar.
He said Afghan government officials have said the victims had no connection to Taliban insurgents.
"It is absolutely unacceptable for heavily armed internationals accompanied by heavily armed Afghan forces to be wandering around conducting dangerous raids that too often result in killings without anyone taking responsibility for them," Alston told reporters.
Alston is a special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions. He has spent 12 days traveling Afghanistan.
He said foreign intelligence agencies were operating with apparent "impunity" in certain provinces. He said such secret operations were "absolutely unacceptable."
"Based on my discussions, there is no reason to doubt that at least some of these units are led by personnel belonging to international intelligence services," he said.
"I am trying to encourage both the Americans and the Afghan government and others to take some of this seriously," Alston said.
U.S. military officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Alston said there had also been raids in the eastern province of Nangarhar - another hotbed of the Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda militants, where U.S. special forces and other American-led units operate.
"When the international military forces at whatever level are asked what they know about them (the raids), the answer sometimes is, 'I know nothing,' and sometimes 'It is interesting, I must inquire into it,' but usually 'Yes, it's a problem, I wish we could do something,'" Alston said.
He said so far this year, more than 500 civilians have been killed by various assailants, including Taliban militants, Afghan and foreign security forces and Afghan militiamen.
He accused Taliban and Afghan police of involvement in unlawful killings.
But he said there was no evidence that international forces commit widespread intentional killings in violation of international humanitarian law.
NATO and the U.S.-led coalition have nearly 70,000 troops fighting the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan and say they make every effort to prevent civilian casualties.
Reports of civilian deaths in military operations have reduced over the past year as foreign forces have taken more precautions in their targeting amid concern such incidents have dented public support for foreign military presence in Afghanistan. But civilians are increasingly killed in suicide bombings launched by insurgents.
Today, a suicide bomber wearing a burqa killed 12 civilians and three police at a crowded market in western province of Farah. Twenty-two people were wounded.
© 2008 Associated Press
6 Comments so far
Show Allhermione,
You evidently don't read enough of reader comments posted at CD, for how you describe the quality is not 100% off-base, but still very. There are MANY totally pointless, kiddy-land posts here, and very redundant are these kiddies, about repeating the same pointless junk ... without end.
=======================
Remarking on some things the article says:
*) "He accused Taliban and Afghan police of involvement in unlawful killings. But he said there was no evidence that international forces commit widespread intentional killings in violation of international humanitarian law."
WHAT; "no evidence that international forces commit widespread intentional killings"? What, like wars of aggression and which even the corrupt and otherwise atrociously WEAK UNSC refused to authorise, which made the whole military "exercise" of aggression illegal and therefore criminal, that this is not proof that Alston's above words, the second sentence, that is, are NOT truthful; or else he's opaque or needs stronger eyeglasses.
*) "NATO and the U.S.-led coalition have nearly 70,000 troops fighting the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan and say they make every effort to prevent civilian casualties."
LIKE EVERY effort they claim to make of the same kind in Iraq; only reality is that such a claim is ... BS! Who are the idiots needing to know what NATO and the U.S. say about their wars of total aggression, when we already know that about the only thing we get from them are LIES followed by many more LIES, without end?.
I believe that the text truthfully says what NATO, which I've read several times is always headed by the U.S. anyway, and the U.S. is true; that the two did say these words. But there is NO reason whatsoever to believe that NATO and the U.S. represent good or good will.
*) "Reports of civilian deaths in military operations have reduced over the past year as foreign forces have taken more precautions in their targeting amid concern such incidents have dented public support for foreign military presence in Afghanistan."
OF COURSE, for the military forces there work for the behind-the-scenes ruling elites, and they all worry about public image.
I try to read one story from CommonDreams every day. While the news are almost always enraging, the reader comments are always informed and intelligent, not to mention compassionate and sometimes quite militant. It's great to start the day in such good company, thank you!!
There was never any excuse for the brutal assault on Afghanistan. All military operations there need to stop. two weeks into this disaster u.s. pilots returned from bombing missions without having dropped bombs because, they said, they "couldn't find any targets". and that was seven years ago. As Eduardo Galeano put it, attacking Afghanistan is "bombing the bombed and killing the killed".
The operations side of the CIA has always existed to commit crimes. However, for close to 5 decades its prime target has been the Soviet bloc, whose own state criminals were at least strong enough to retaliate in kind. Of course, there was no counterbalance in Latin America, so what happened there was a long string of atrocities involving the CIA directly or indirectly. Now, most efforts are directed against people in the Islamic world, who do not have sufficient organizations to assassinate an appropriate number of CIA officers. The result is another long string of atrocities.
George W. Bush and his vidio gamers murder and maim any nations' women and children.
"Pakistan's government says it is still investigating an explosion near the Afghan border that killed at least 12 people late Wednesday. The blast, which locals and some officials blamed on a U.S. missile strike, could affect ongoing peace talks between pro-Taliban militants and government officials. VOA's Barry Newhouse reports from Islamabad."
And more innocents must still be killed by collateral damage from military operations that will continue to punish those suicide bombers so they can never do any suicide bombings again!
If there is one thing a suicide bomber is scared of it is death!