American Soldier(s) Massacre 16 Afghan Civilians

[Nordic]

That's more bullshit to press the stupid fucking notion that Bales did this alone. The piece right above that one, posted by SLAD, should put an end to that fucking shit.

Fucking American media. Fucking Huff Post. May they all burn in hell.

[Ben D]

Afghan massacre investigation blocked by US – lawyer

RT Published: 31 March, 2012, 08:03

The defense lawyer for Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians, is blaming the US for blocking his team’s fact-finding mission into the Kandahar incident. He says he can’t interview witnesses and prosecutors won’t cooperate.

John Henry Browne claims US forces in Afghanistan obstructed him and his associates from reaching the injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar province to interview them on the matter, Reuters reports. He added that other possible witnesses were allowed to get away, with little possibility of finding them now. According to Browne, after investigators interviewed those injured, they let them go freely without leaving any contact information, and they are not sharing data they obtained from the witnesses with his team. He says Bales' defense has only managed to talk to US soldiers in Afghanistan, but no witnesses.

Bales’ lawyer also regretted that investigators withheld images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base, which the Army says shows Bales returning after the alleged shooting.

Browne explains that the military prosecutors who filed the charges against Bales have been unwilling to cooperate, and that “they are concerned about the strength of their case.”

The lawyer complained of an “almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client.”

For the time being Bales will have his psychological condition examined. Officials also say that due to security concerns, Bales is likely to remain at the Fort Leavenworth military base in Kansas, and will not be transferred to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington, DC. The exam, officially called “board 706,” is routine for mass murder cases such as Bales’. Bales is charged with multiple counts of premeditated murder, a crime that could be punishable by death. The Kandahar shooting spree earlier this month sparked outrage among Afghan lawmakers, who demanded that Bales be tried in an Afghan court.

[seemslikeadream]

Evidence Mounts That Afghan Massacre Was Linked to Special Operations Forces' Response to Improvised Explosive Device
Wednesday, 23 May 2012 00:00 By Gareth Porter and Shah Nouri, Truthout |

Soldier in silhouette(Photo: Whitney Hughes / National Guard; Edited: JR / TO)Interviews with survivors, relatives of the civilians massacred in Panjwai on March 11, and with other local residents add new evidence suggesting that the massacre was linked to the response by the US Special Operations Forces (SOF) unit to a roadside bomb that had blown up a US troop carrier three days earlier.

Sgt. Robert Bales, who has been accused of the massacre, was in charge of security for the SOF base at Camp Belambay, and evidence now suggests he may have decided on the killing after learning of an operation in Najiban the night of March 11 aimed at killing a man suspected of being connected with a roadside bomb explosion on March 8.

The brother of one of those killed along with ten other relatives from a single house in the village of Najiban said in an interview with Truthout that the victim had been warned by a US soldier at a checkpoint near the Special Forces camp that the Americans knew his vineyard was very close to where the improvised explosive device (IED) exploded.

That warning suggests that the Green Beret unit at Camp Belambay had checked on the identity of those who owned and worked on land near the site of explosion.

Immediately after the IED exploded, a US military officer threatened to take revenge against civilians, including women and children in the vicinity, if the local population failed to inform troops about another IED explosion, Afghans present at the meeting told Truthout in separate interviews.

Published eyewitness accounts by survivors of the killing of a single individual in another house in Najiban village the night of the massacre indicate that the killer in that instance was accompanied by other US troops at the compound where the murder took place.

Further suggesting a connection between the indiscriminate killing attributed to Bales and an SOF operation that night in the same village is evidence from Afghan guards at the Special Forces camp that a patrol had been sent out that night and that the camp commander had put out a false story on what was known about the movements of Bales.

Bales was assigned to help provide security for the Green Berets, who represented the majority of the few dozen troops at Camp Belambay, and would have been aware of efforts by the SOF unit to determine who was involved in planting the IED on March 8 as well as of who else was aware of those efforts.

Muhammad Wazir, who lost all of his family except for a four-year old son in the March 11 massacre in Najiban village, told Truthout in an interview that his brother, Akhter Muhammad, had been working with him in the vineyard that the two brothers had leased from the owner in the village of Mokhoyan near where the roadside bomb had gone off March 8.

Wazir was away from the village in the days following the IED blast and thus escaped the massacre that took the life of his brother, his brother's family and the rest of his own family except for his four-year-old son who was with him. But he said that another villager had told him that the day after the IED exploded, Akhter Muhammad had shown his identification card to a US soldier at a checkpoint near Camp Belambay and had been had told by the soldiers that the Americans knew the IED had been planted near his vineyard, according to the account Wazir got from another resident of Najiban.

Other residents of Najiban told him that the warning had frightened his brother, Wazir said.

Two days after that incident, Bales is accused of having gone into the compound where both Wazir and Muhammad lived, along with Wazir's mother and children and Akhter's new wife, and methodically murdered Akhter and everyone else in the house.

Wazir's account of the warning to his brother does not appear to have any political motive. Unlike some other residents, he does not accuse the Americans of killing his brother, as well as his mother, his wife and his six children out of revenge. "I really don't know if his killing and my family killing was the result of the bomb blast or something else," Wazir said in the interview.

Pentagon and US military officials have sought to keep any mention of an IED explosion out of media coverage of the Panjwai massacre. On March 21, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby claimed there was "no evidence" of any IED attack in the days prior to the massacre.

However, several residents of the village of Mokhoyan told Truthout in interviews that a bomb definitely exploded under a US armored vehicle in that village near Camp Belambay late in the afternoon of March 8. Some residents said they had seen the crater in the road caused by the bomb.

An Afghan soldier showed an Associated Press reporter the place in the road where the bomb had created a deep crater. Bates himself later told his lawyer, John Henry Browne, that he had been angry because an IED had blown off the leg of a "buddy" two days before his rampage. He was apparently referring to the IED that exploded three days before.

Five eyewitnesses said in separate interviews with Truthout that a US commander had blamed the local population for failing to report the IED, and threatened retaliation against civilians, including women and children, if it happened again.

Within as little as an hour or two after the IED exploded, according to the five eyewitnesses, ten to 15 villagers in Mokhoyan were summoned by US and Afghan troops to a meeting with a US soldier, who was described to Truthout by two eyewitnesses as "a commander." The men said they were summoned to the meeting from the mosque in the village, where they had been offering evening prayers.

All of the dozen men interviewed for this story were very reluctant to give their names, because of fears concerning all parties - the Taliban, US forces and the government - and especially because of the tense situation after the mass killings of March 11. Most of them insisted that their names not be used.

One villager summoned to the center of the village, who would give only his first name, Eshaqzai, told Truthout he was in his garden irrigating his crop when the bomb went off.

Eshaqzai said he went to the mosque with ten or 15 other residents of the village and, as they finished their prayer, "US soldiers came to take us out of the mosque to where the commander was waiting for us."

He said he and the other men had to sit on the ground and listen to a US officer, whom he described as a "commander," speak to them through an Afghan translator for an hour.

"The commander told us that Taliban are in your village and are being supported by you," said Eshaqzai. "He also mentioned the IED that exploded and asked us why we hadn't reported the planting of IEDs, because the Taliban let the villagers know whenever they plant the roadside bombs."

Finally, the commander warned the men that the next time such an event took place, they would face "dire consequences," Eshaqzai recalled.

One resident, who refused to give his name, said, "The American commander threatened to kill the women and children in retaliation if it happened again." He said the US officer blamed the residents for providing shelter and food for Taliban. "He told us that he knew Taliban are telling us where they are planting IEDs, so why don't you support us?" he told Truthout.

The men who were present at the meeting could not identify the rank of the officer they believed was a commander, but one of the men said in an interview that he believed him to be "a commander" because he was accompanied by an Afghan interpreter.

In the case of Camp Belambay, the commander would have been a Special Forces officer at the rank of major or above, according to retired Army intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who worked with Special Forces units in Afghanistan on covert operations. But a Special Forces detachment with a few dozen soldiers would probably be divided into at least three squads, with each squad leader having his own interpreter, Shaffer told Truthout.

Accounts by survivors of the killing of another Afghan civilian, Mohammad Dawood, in a second home in Najiban in the early morning of March 11 suggest that it was a military operation involving as many as 15 to 20 US troops.

Globalpost's Bette Dam reported March 23 that Dawood's wife, Massouma, said she heard helicopters flying overhead when a uniformed soldier entered her home and flashed what she described as a "big, white light," and yelled, "Taliban! Taliban! Taliban!"

She recalled the solider had a walkie-talkie and was shouting "walkie-talkie, walkie-talkie" into it just before killing her husband. That was an apparent effort to justify killing him, based on rules of engagement that permit shooting an Afghan holding a walkie-talkie as a potential Taliban spotter in certain areas with heavy insurgent presence.

Unlike Bales' killing spree elsewhere in Najiban, however, the soldier spared the woman and her sons.

After the soldier had killed her husband, Massouma said she had looked through the curtains and saw "at least 20 Americans, with heavy weapons, in the larger family compound, including her bathroom."

Globalpost reported that an Afghan journalist had spoken with one of her sons, aged seven, who had confirmed having seen a number of US soldiers through the curtains.

The behavior of the killer as well as the reported presence of a larger group of soldiers, appear to rule out Bales as the killer in that incident.

The investigative web site Emptywheel reported March 28 that Department of Defense spokesperson Bill Speaks had checked with the International Security Assistance Force and confirmed that "there were no military operations in those villages the night of the killings." But in response to a query from Truthout, Brig. Gen. Lewis M. Boone, the director of public affairs for US Forces Afghanistan, qualified that response. "[A]ll operational reports received in the initial aftermath of the incident indicate that the subject acted alone," Boone wrote. "Furthermore, his actions were not associated with any other operation in the area."

In a further email, Boone explained that any additional information beyond those initial reports related to the questions of whether Bales acted alone and whether there was a US military operation that night "falls under the purview of the investigation."

Further indicating a link between the massacre and an SOF operation that night in Najiban are indications of a cover-up of what the camp command knew about Bales' whereabouts during those early morning hours as well as the location of an SOF patrol from the camp.

A report by Michael Evans of The Times in London, published only two days after the massacre in Panjwai District, claimed that everyone in the camp was ordered out of their beds at 3:05 AM after a camp guard had said there was a man missing. After Bales' absence was confirmed, a small patrol was sent out to find him, according to that account attributed to an unnamed US military source.

The patrol failed to find him and, instead, Bales returned to the base on his own, according to that initial account.

But Yalda Hakim, an Australian journalist of Afghan descent, interviewed the Afghan guard on duty at Camp Belambay when Bales first arrived back at the base. The guard said it was 1:30 AM when Bales returned, and that he had immediately called the duty officer and told him the American had just entered the base and to notify the foreign forces.

The guard's testimony suggests that the camp command already knew that Bales had been outside the camp early in the morning, but had done nothing about it. That fact in turn suggests that Bales, who was responsible for camp security, was understood by the camp commander to have some degree of involvement in the military operation planned for that night.

Another guard, who was on duty later that night, told Hakim as well as Afghan investigators that he saw Bales leave the base again at 2:30 AM and, this time, the guard said he called a "patrol," rather than the duty officer and that the patrol had then called the base commander.

The second guard's testimony indicates that the "patrol" was already outside the base at the time when the camp commander supposedly demanded a bed check to confirm Bales' absence. The official account given to The Times less than two days after the massacre that a bed check was ordered just after 3 AM thus appears to represent an effort to cover up the operation under way at that moment.

Those troops may have been headed to Najiban to carry out an operation targeting Mohammad Dawood, perhaps because he was believed to have been linked in some way to the IED explosion.

[cptmarginal]

Seems appropriate to put this here...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ci ... story.html

CIA runs shadow war with Afghan militia implicated in civilian killings

By Sudarsan Raghavan December 3 at 9:56 PM

TOR GHAR, Afghanistan — Months after the Obama administration declared combat operations over in Afghanistan, the CIA continues to run a shadow war in the eastern part of the country, overseeing an Afghan proxy called the Khost Protection Force, according to local officials, former commanders of that militia and Western advisers.

The highly secretive paramilitary unit has been implicated in civilian killings, torture, questionable detentions, arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force in controversial night raids, abuses that have mostly not been previously disclosed.

The elite Afghan fighters and their American handlers came to Tor Ghar one night in September. Shortly after midnight, wearing tan camouflage and black masks, they entered a village in this remote mountainous area straddling the Pakistan border in search of militants with a Taliban-allied group, said local officials and tribal elders who later spoke with the force’s commanders.

Within minutes, the armed men had arrived at Darwar Khan’s house.

“When my father opened the gate, they shot him dead,” recalled Khan, who was inside the house at the time. “Then, they tossed a grenade into the compound, killing my mother.”

His father was a farmer. His mother was a homemaker. It was not the first time the fighters had killed civilians in this strategic region. And it wouldn’t be the last allegation of wrongdoing.

This article is based on interviews with witnesses of six separate attacks by the militia in the past year, as well as court documents in the only known legal case filed against the unit, after one or more of its men shot a 14-year-old boy to death. Three former commanders of the unit, known as the KPF, tribal elders, lawmakers, lawyers, activists and local government officials with direct knowledge of the force and the CIA’s role were also interviewed.

In several attacks, witnesses described hearing English being spoken by armed men who had interpreters with them, suggesting American operatives were present during assaults where extreme force was used.

In an e-mailed statement, the agency’s spokesman, Dean Boyd, said that “we’ve taken significant steps to help the Afghan National Directorate of Security address allegations of human rights abuse.” The directorate, known as the NDS, ostensibly oversees the Khost force. Boyd declined to comment on any specific claims of abuse.

“We take seriously any allegation of abuse involving foreign liaison services and routinely work with them to rectify such matters,” Boyd said. “Our goal is always to improve the capabilities and professionalism of foreign counterparts.”

On Oct. 15, as President Obama announced that 5,500 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan past next year, he stressed that they would have just two missions: training Afghan forces and fighting al-Qaeda. Yet, throughout this year, there has been an aggressive American effort to stem Taliban territorial gains.

And the CIA, separate from the U.S. military, enjoys looser rules of engagement that have enabled it to expand targets to include the Taliban and its allies, the Haqqani network.

Here in this strategic eastern border province, which has long served as a key gateway for militants entering from Pakistan, the KPF fights in conjunction with the CIA out of Forward Operating Base Chapman.

The KPF “is one of the most effective elements fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and were it not for their constant efforts, Khost would likely be a Haqqani-held province, and Kabul would be under far greater threat than it is,” said a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity. “This is a group made up of thousands of soldiers who come from the area and consequently have the respect and insights necessary to operate in a professional manner despite the constant engagement with the enemy.”

Afghan government officials acknowledge that the KPF has killed civilians and committed other abuses. But they claim that the Taliban and other insurgents exaggerate the civilian toll. “The KPF has played a very important role in security, and we are happy for their sacrifices,” said Hukam Khan Habibi, the province’s governor.

In Khost, the KPF is more influential than the Afghan army and police, and is unaccountable to the provincial government, often acting outside normal chains of command. Locally, militias such as the KPF are called “campaign forces,” an informal name Afghans use for pro-government armed groups.

The KPF is so feared that several people interviewed spoke under the condition of anonymity because they worried for their lives. Others spoke on the record because they wanted their experiences told.
‘The real bosses’

Reports surfaced last year that the CIA was dismantling its Afghan paramilitary units, especially the 4,000-strong KPF, amid the broader drawdown of U.S. forces. But a visit to Khost last month revealed that although there is coordination with the security directorate — the NDS — the CIA is still directing the KPF’s operations, paying fighters’ salaries, and training and equipping them. American personnel were gathering biometric data of alleged suspects, according to witnesses, former KPF commanders and local officials who regularly meet with the force and their American overseers.

One commander, who left the force last month, said that CIA operatives regularly hold planning sessions and that in October he received his salary directly from them. “The orders came from the Americans,” he said. They were “the real bosses.”

“Only in name is the KPF linked to the NDS,” said Mohammad Qadin Afghan, a provincial council member and former KPF fighter who maintains close ties to the force. “They still work for the CIA.”

On the night they killed his parents, Khan recalled, men outside the compound were yelling in English. Days later, the KPF commander acknowledged to Khan and village elders that the deaths were a mistake, and handed him $11,000 in compensation, Khan and other villagers said.

The target of the raid was Khan’s uncle, who lived next door. He bought and sold Kalashnikov rifles, his relatives said, hardly the high-level type of suspect the CIA typically targets. The fighters handcuffed him, took him away and later handed him to the NDS.

Today, his family does not know his whereabouts and has no contact with him. He has not been charged with any crime, and he does not have a lawyer.

“No one is telling us why they have taken him,” said Hekmata, his mother, who, like many Afghans, uses one name.

The CIA is not bound by the Bilateral Security Agreement between Afghanistan and Washington that, among other rules, limits the ability of U.S. military forces to enter Afghan homes. The night raids, for the most part banned in 2013 by former president Hamid Karzai, were quietly reinstated by the U.S.-brokered coalition government of President Ashraf Ghani in an effort to better combat the Taliban. But Afghans consider the intrusions offensive.

The CIA is not subject to human rights vetting procedures under the Leahy Law, which proscribes the use of American taxpayer dollars to assist, train or equip any foreign military or police unit perpetrating gross human rights violations.

The KPF was one of several large paramilitary forces created by the CIA in the months after the Taliban was ousted following the 9/11 attacks. Recruits were drawn from local tribes in Khost with promises of salaries, equipment and conditions that were better than in the Afghan military.

The force largely operates along the border with North Waziristan, the Pakistani tribal region that is a nerve center for the Taliban, its ally, the Haqqani Network, and al-Qaeda. Fighters receive as much as $400 a month in salary, twice what a soldier in the Afghan security forces earns. Commanders earn $1,000 or more a month, as much as an Afghan army general. Equipped with night-vision goggles, they drive tan Humvees and armored trucks mounted with machine guns.

CIA operatives often travel along on raids with the KPF in order to call in airstrikes, from U.S. warplanes or drones, if needed, said Sardar Khan Zadran, a former top KPF commander who still maintains close links to the force.

“They are accountable to no one but the Americans,” Zadran said.

After the assault on his home, Khan said he and his brother were brought to the base, also known as Camp Chapman. (It was named after Sgt. Nathan Chapman, the first U.S. soldier to be killed by enemy fire in 2002, while he was fighting alongside CIA operatives.) Khan was interrogated by Afghans, but Americans fingerprinted him and scanned his eyes, communicating with him through an interpreter. Others who were detained in other attacks described the same procedure.

“They capture anyone they want for no reason,” recalled a local storekeeper, speaking partly in broken English, who was rounded up three months ago in a night raid in which he heard voices speaking English. A bag, he said, was placed over his head even after he informed his captors that he has asthma and had difficulty breathing. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.

Continued at link, with pictures (not graphic ones, in case anyone was wondering)