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US Special Forces 'Tried to Cover Up' Botched Khataba Raid in Afghanistan
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims' bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.
Relatives at the graves of five people killed, including three women, during the night raid. (TimesOnline/UK)
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother
were shot
on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in
Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise
composition of the force has never been made public.
The claims were made as NATO admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies.
"Despite earlier reports we have determined that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men," said Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale, a NATO spokesman. The coalition continued to deny that there had been a cover-up and said that its legal investigation, which is ongoing, had found no evidence of inappropriate conduct.
The Kabul headquarters of General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and Nato forces, claimed originally that the women had been "tied up, gagged and killed".
A senior Afghan official involved in a government investigation told The Times: "I think the special forces lied to McChrystal."
"Why did the special forces collect their bullets from the area?" the official said. "They washed the area of the injuries with alcohol and brought out the bullets from the dead bodies. The bodies showed there were big holes."
The official, who asked not to be named until the results of the investigation have been made public, said that the assault force sealed off the compound from 4am, when the raid started, to 11am, when Afghan officials from Gardez were finally allowed access to the house.
At least 11 bullets were fired during the raid, the investigator said, and the shooting was carried out by two American gunmen positioned on the roof of the compound. Only seven bullets were recovered from the scene.
"I asked McChrystal, ‘why did the Americans clean some of the bullets from the area?' They don't have the right to do that," the official said.
Haji Sharabuddin, the head of the family who were attacked, told The Times last month that troops removed bullets from his relatives' bodies, but his claims were impossible to verify. The hallway where four of the five victims were killed had been repainted and at least two bullet holes had been plastered over.
Video footage of the raid's aftermath, collected by Afghan investigators, shows close-up shots of one man's bloodstained and punctured torso and walls with blood on them. The Afghan official's conclusion that the bullets were removed is based on the testimony of survivors, analysis of the photographs and the missing bullets.
NATO promised a joint forensic investigation in a statement issued after the raid, but Rear Admiral Greg Smith, the coalition's director of communications in Afghanistan, said that this had proved impossible because the bodies were buried the same day in accordance with Islamic custom.
Instead Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior sent its top criminal investigator from Kabul, and a Canadian brigadier-general led a separate military inquiry.
The Afghan investigation differed in one respect from The Times' findings. Survivors told this newspaper that Saranwal Zahir, the police officer's brother, was shot when he tried to shout that his family was innocent. The women, who were crouching behind him, were killed in the same volley of fire. Afghan investigators believe that Mr Zahir was carrying an AK47 and wanted to avenge his brother's killers. The women were clustered around him, trying to pull him inside the house, when the second US gunman opened fire, killing all four of them.
Footage collected by the Afghan team also shows a man in United States Army uniform taking pictures of the bodies. The findings have not been made public. The Interior Ministry is expected to pass a report to the Attorney-General's office, which will decide whether or not it can press criminal charges.
The family had more than 25 guests on the night of the attack, as well as three musicians, to celebrate the naming of a newborn child.
"In what culture in the world do you invite ... people for a party and meanwhile kill three women?" asked the senior official. "The dead bodies were just eight meters from where they were preparing the food. The Americans, they told us the women were dead for 14 hours."
In a statement yesterday, Brigadier-General Eric Tremblay, a NATO spokesman, said: "We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families.
"The force went to the compound based on reliable information in search of a Taliban insurgent, and believed that the two men posed a threat to their personal safety. We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families."
- Posted in
44 Comments so far
Show AllThat's the whole war in a nutshell.
Hoa binh
The typical sequence of these "official" investigations of an atrocity.
1. It never happened but..
2. When it happened we didn't do it but...
3. When we did it it was an accident and...
4. We are very very sorry, won't happen again.
Thanks for reminding me of "the sequence". Even though I've read where over 50% of the US population still believes Saddam Hussein had a hand in the events of 9/11/01, I'm sure a large extent have seen this pattern by now. I'll make sure to use it as I bring this story to my neighbors asking, "How many more years of this, and for what and for who?".
I'm sure a large extent have seen this pattern by now.
Puck..Twain I believe you to be right on this point, however the problem is that too many are cheering for these murders. After all the victims don't matter since they are brown, Muslim,and poor, therefore terrorist scum and death is too good for them.
Sadly this is true of my fellow Canadians as well. There is currently an ongoing cover up by our government of the facts surrounding allegations of torture in Afghanistan and I am constantly hearing comments such as who cares they are only terrorists and Afghani's anyways.
Too many cheering these murders? Is that what you think? Pregnant women? Come on, we may be racist but we aren't that bad.
Sadly the "The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim" crowd does exist and not just in America but in every so called Christian nation on Earth
Drosera: 'we aren't that bad?' Sadly, I must disagree. I have been visiting my parents in the small town where I was raised. Here's a sampling of what I hear re: Iraq, Pak, and Afgan:
- How else are we going to stop them from killing us unless we kill them first?
- If it means protecting Americans, then I don't care!
- How are they going to learn to be civilized unless we kill off the taliban?
- They are all getting trained by al qaeda anyway.
- The kids will just end up being suicide bombers anyway.
And I'm not kidding. My heart breaks every time I hear any of these, or their ilk.
The fear that allows people to kill in the pursuit of peace runs very deep and very strong. And I don't believe that the fear is only in my small hometown.
"who cares they are only terrorists and Afghani's anyways." the chickens shall surely come home to roost one day...
There are more steps to the sequence. a) The soldiers killed the civilians in "self-defense". Later it is called an accident. b) The children, relatives, and neighbors of the victims are now likely "terrorists", who can now be legitimately targeted.
Lets not forget the final step
Here's a few pieces of eight, there now feel better? I know we do.
Phoenix20
Your trenchant observation is reminiscent of what the former British playwright Harold Pinter told his audience when he gave his Nobel Prize Lecture in December 2005:
"It [U.S. military aggression] never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."
Pinter, of courses, was right. The war crimes, such as one described in this article, are rarely, if ever, discussed in the mainstream media and certainly never described for what they actually are and that is as being war crimes. It is quite doubtful if mainstream programs such as Hardball will ever actually ask the hardball questions which should focus upon this latest atrocity by the U.S. military. But the chances of anthing substantial and punitive occurring are probably quite slim as the Special Forces have been glorified for quite a long time, starting with JFK, when he formed the Green Berets, to the chickenhawk John Wayne starring in that patriotic and loathsome flag waving 1960s film The Green Berets which unsuccessfully tried to demonstrate how the Green Berets were going to somehow save the United States from losing the Vietnam War.
A Green Beret who is worth admiring is Donald Duncan who noted in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir! that:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
That statement by Duncan is what those who belong in the Special Forces should be reflecting upon instead of foolishly obeying their orders for Obama, God, and country.
Erroll: good pickup, Pinter's address. I was aware as I was constructing my "sequence" that these weren't really original thoughts coming out of my "brilliant" mind (maybe actually the Beautiful Mind syndrome).
If one can bear the comparison, how about examining Pinter's 2005 Nobel address against that of Obama four years later? Didn't Obama just prove Pinter's point about the tendency of Americans to "hypnotize" themselves into an ability to stand for the sequential lies that their leaders tell them about the military operations of their country? Hail to the Hypnotizer-in-Chief!
We know how to kill, we just aren't very good with the lie, but we are working on that.
Gut shots....how very....professional.
It is a good time to remember this recent quote from McChrystal:
"I do want to say something that everyone understands. We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." - Gen. Stanley McChrystal, video conference in Afghanistan around Mar 26, 2010
I find that once again I am ashamed of my country.
aspiecelia: 'once again ashamed'? So, this means that there has been at least one time in the last say 10 years that you HAVEN'T been ashamed of this country?
Please clue me in on what time that might have been!
""The force went to the compound based on reliable information in search of a Taleban insurgent,"
In what alternate version of reality, or dictionary, does what they actually encountered, compared to what they were told, equal "reliable?"
Just a good days work for our glorious troops defending our freedom.
How do we tell the difference between the "enemy" and ordinary civilians. An ordinary civilian and the enemy wear the same kind of clothes. A MAD WAR THAT IS IMMORAL AND UNWINABLE.
This episode with the US Special Forces is likely the rule instead of the exception here as it was in Vietnam. If Moscow's army had done something like this during the time that army ws in Afghanistan, would we say it's OK for them to investigate what that army did? At least Moscow was backing a government carrying out land reform and giving women equal rights while the US Government backed the weirdos, the same weirdos that same government claims to be fighting today.
AD
It is a disgrace.Get the hell out. Obama is only fighting this senseless war to cover his political ass. If the Afgan people want to be ruled by fascist Taliban, let them.
The political and economic fallout from 9/11/01 has cost us much of our democracy (what there was left at the time) and trillions of our treasury, and thousands of US lives, hundreds of thousands of lives of non-combatant Iraqis, Afgans and Pakistanis. This is Vietnam all over again. We don't learn and the political-media complex has rendered our government useless.
What is the moral of this story?
Don't get in the way of corporate America. If corporate America can make a one trillion dollar robbery of the mineral wealth in Afghanistan, you will be injured or killed with your entire village if you resist.
Corporate America does not care about your "democracy" or ownership rights. It is all theirs.
A continuation of 600 years of corporate slaughter of tibals for their land and resources.
Article fails to mention what we learned previously on CD, this was the home of the local prosecutor and I believe his brother was police chief.
Two snipers and prominent possibly unbribable officials.
SMELLS LIKE A HIT!
The US is the most propagandized nation on the planet.
Well this, gouging your own bullets out of dead women, done by US "special forces", to better lie about your actions, this pretty much settles the matter for me, if it wasn't already settled, about whether there is any merit to continuing the occupation of Afghanistan.
Who said:
I support "military action [in Afghanistan] against those responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11th."
"Abandoning Afghanistan and the region is against America's national interests."
I am "committed to defeating Al Qaeda and helping the Afghan government provide safety, security, and economic opportunity to its people."
"Afghanistan cannot be allowed to once again become a sanctuary for terror and extremism."
George W. Bush? Dick Cheney?
No.
Betty McCollum, "liberal" Democratic Congressperson of Minnesota.
She said it March 2010, in response to Afghan woman Malalai Joya's November 2009 plea to withdraw US/NATO forces. Joya wrote:
"Already this year we have seen the impact of an increase in troops occupying Afghanistan: more violence, and more civilian deaths. My people, the poor of Afghanistan who have known only war and the domination of fundamentalism, are today squashed between two enemies: the US/NATO occupation forces on one hand and warlords and the Taliban on the other."
"While we want the withdrawal of one enemy [US/NATO], we don't believe it is a matter of choosing between two evils. There is an alternative: the democratic-minded parties and intellectuals are our hope for the future of Afghanistan."
"It will not be easy, but if we have a little bit of peace we will be better able to fight our own internal enemies – Afghans know what to do with our destiny. We are not a backward people, and we are capable of fighting for democracy, human and women's rights in Afghanistan. In fact the only way these values will be achieved is if we struggle for them and win them ourselves."
"After eight years of war, the situation is as bad as ever for ordinary Afghans, and women in particular. The reality is that only the drug traffickers and warlords have been helped under this corrupt and illegitimate Karzai government. Karzai's promises of reform are laughable."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/30/obama-afghanistan-troops
Shame on Obama, McCollum and others who defend atrocities and an obscene war with fear-mongering and empty rhetoric.
This is Obama's war. It's McCollum's war.
Shame on those who vote for them. Shame on us all, for not doing enough to defeat them.
Great post, McCollum's words are very simple, straightforward and completely wrong.
Remember this while you're paying your taxes next week. Without our support our jackbooted goons would have to discontinue their "appropriate" slaughter of tied up, gagged terrorist women and terrorist children.
The ghoulish part of the Sopranos was not so much the murders as the coverups - disposing of the bodies down at Satriale's Sausage Deli. The boys and girls of our special forces are getting quite an education. And we want to bring them home? Better think again.
More of this needs to be uncovered and shown. There's a video on CD right now from Wikileaks showing the murder and wounding, from the safe distance of a helicopter, of journalists and innocent civilians trying to help them. The cold-blooded talk and laughter as they proceed is chilling to say the least. The only way this insanity will end is to show more of it's real effects to the brain-dead American populace. I hold no hope that our media will finally do its job, but I think it's the only way out.
aliensoup: I tried showing it to some, four, brain-dead Americans. They walked out claiming it was (1) a fake, (2) made up by democrats who support Obama, and (3) lies concocted by unpatriotic liberals who hate America and hate our freedoms.
Now, just which of those claims whould you have chosen to take on?
Me? None of them. With so much willful ignorance, I chose to stop trying to educate. I used to ask myself 'how is it possible that people can CHOOSE to remain so ignorant when a quick search of the internet would give them more information than they could handle?' I do not ask myself that anymore. I simply do not have the patience to try to educate these people. I turn them over to those who do have the patience. GOOD LUCK!
I feel your pain. It unbelievable how people will cling to myths in spite of all the evidence.
The animals responsible for these horrific,despicable acts of murder against defenseless pregnant women, men and children should be brought before an Afghan court and if found guilty,be-headed in the public square. The murderers knew they were guilty when they dug the bullets out of their victims corpses,washed the wounds with alcohol,scrubbed the walls and floor free from blood and made up excuses for the "accident".
These animals burst into the house with every intent on killing anyone thought to be a "possible" threat. There were Ak47's visible in the hands of the Afghan men shot and were assumed to be Taliban. Our war lords have trained their lackeys well and have achieved success knowing that the more civilians killed the more victories they will achieve in future wars against terrorism. Of course the military forces are utilized for one purpose; to kill. In the 21st century the military establishment is not used to "protect" us from perceived threats but only to further this "governments" economic interests.
The murders of these innocent Afghans should be the death knell for our war in Afghanistan. The Afghan people should rise up and demand our withdrawal now! But will that happen???...........and the beat goes on.
It seems military intilegence is a contradiction of terms. I have little hope for (change we can believe in). Our so called MSM does not respect the truth.
I’m beginning to think that the main reason why the anti-war movement is failing to take hold in America is because those who criticize our military presence in the Muslim World can’t do so without also criticizing our unconditional support for Israel. This didn’t happen to the outspoken critics of the Vietnam War because there weren’t the likes of AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League around to silence them, by either seeing to it that they were marginalized from academics, as it happened to Juan Cole, or denied tenure, as it happened to Norman Finkelstein. So until we can figure out a way to cut the balls of AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League, thus freeing ourselves from our unconditional support for Israel, we will continue to waste enormous amounts of blood and treasure on worthless wars throughout the Muslim World.
Cynthia: I believe your point is well-taken. So many of our misbegotten foreign policy adventures track back to that demon unconditional support of a country (Israel) which has taken the American public to school to learn about the "evils" of Islam. While the influence of the Israeli lobby should not be minimized, I believe there's a larger issue of political culture involved here. The anti-war movement seemed pretty strong when the Bush administration was carrying out these anti-Muslim wars, but has now gone into deep hibernation as Bush's war has become Obama's war, and the Zionist organizations are no more influential now than in the era of GOP control. If you want to cut some "balls," I'd suggest you start with those mild-mannered and well-behaved "liberals" who, in their thralldom to a "black" President who allows them to think of themselves as unprejudiced and their country as "beyond race," will not criticize the war for fear of criticizing their idol, exactly as you say so many Americans won't question those "worthless wars" against Muslims because they offend our Israeli ally.
"We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families."
And that's the whole of the US-NATO aggressive war in Afghanistan summed up.
The US military is out of control. They are all cowards and get off killing and raping innocent children and anything that moves.
Where is the msm? No freaking where.
This country needs a rude awakening.
The MSM is owned, lock, stock and barrel by the Corporations. Disney owns ABC, NBC is owned by General Electric. Once upon a time there were 88 different media concerns in the US. Now there are six. And the boards are occupied by many of the same people.
In case you haven't noticed, *EVERY SINGLE* broadcaster and Cable channel promotes the US military as a way of life. Just look at the number of military positive ads, shows, and military themed movies that are advertised.
In the case of the US, morality comes from the barrel of a gun. Killing good, sex (and life) bad.
Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out.
"In a statement yesterday, Brigadier-General Eric Tremblay, a NATO spokesman, said: "We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families."
It isn't only the USA- though the USA is far and away the largest sponsor of state-terrorism the world. The entire by Western hemisphere is culpable. I wonder what the Brits will say when the next big terrorist attack hits them because of something the USA did? The entire imperialist Western world's karma is coming due. France, Germany, England, ALL of those colonial imperialist countries have a price to pay- not only the USA. And Tremblay is more correct than he might think: It is very likely they will feel the anger forever!
Just accept it.
Your country is going down in flames. Civil war (over healthcare, fer gawd's sake!) is a strong possibility. Your economy is a lie based on falsehoods, built on deception. You have an ad campaign, not a culture.
The Government and the Corporations have you numbed, drugged, and 'infotained' to the point you couldn't find your own asses with a map, both hands, and advanced GPS. How many people do you know have a slavish Pavlovian response to their various cel phones and iCrap?
And just to point out the obvious, under Bush the Patriot Act stripped you of your rights and freedoms, and just a little while ago a US Army command was set up to combat (literally!) unrest by the civilian population in the continental US. Obama (he who the Democrats, liberals and progressives expected to walk on water... just because he was black...) has not only done nothing to overturn the Bush junta's actions, he has actually expanded them.
Make peace with yourselves. Admit that you are screwed. Drop out and start over. Break up the corrupt US into smaller nations. Do away with the abusive Corporations.
Think for yourselves.
Some of our soldiers are losing all sense of decency and morality. This happened in Vietnam, in Iraq and it is happening now in Afghanistan. War turns human beings into beasts.
War? It's business! Simply a way for the gangsters and hoodlums ... corporations, powerful, wealthy, elite ... to expand their dominion.
Ordinary people are expendable.
Soldiers are expendable.
The victims of the wars are expendable.
The wars are not being fought for our freedom. The wars are not being fought for anyone's freedom or the institution of democracy.
The wars are simply being waged to allow for the freedom of corporations, powerful, wealthy, elite to make more money, have more power, become wealthier, and become the elite of the elite.
IMHO, it is all beyond comprehension. There is a sickness deep and profound within our society. We are blinded by our own brainwashing with super-patriotism and warped allegiance to a democracy that does not even truly exist for us.
Atrocities will continue. Death. Devastation. Loss. All a toll paid by soldiers and victims of war ... not a toll paid by the corporations, the powerful, the wealthy or the elite.
When are we going to want an end to war?
The same story that has gone on in Iraq. There is general lawlessness, so a man or a woman has a weapon to protect themselves and their children. The door is kicked in, the person grabs his/her weapon and the entire family is gunned down. "The man had a weapon, he was obviously an insurgent."
The American policy in all these nations is that any person who resists or protests occupation by the US is either an insurgent or a terrorist by definition.
We, like the Borg, have a policy. "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
If, somehow, the US was invaded by a powerful enemy; who established a quisling government to rule us according to their precepts; who met any resistance with overwhelming force; if we were seeing our towns and villages destroyed by missiles and shellfire; if our neighbors and our families were taken away to gulags for torture, indefinite detention or death; I think we would see millions of Americans fighting back with any means at their disposal. The occupiers would brand us "terrorists or insurgents," we would call ourselves patriots.
Just look back at WW-II and France. The resistance was heralded as patriotic groups fighting the Nazis against overwhelming odds. To the Nazis, they were partisan terrorists to be exterminated without mercy. Whole villages died in reprisals, but the resistance went on.
Afghanistan and the Pashtun area has been fighting invaders and occupiers for thousands of years. They don't like foreigners invading their lands. Eventually, after mountains of skulls and rivers of blood, we, too, shall depart.
Unfortunately, the hatred generated will probably last for generations.