Nasheman

India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English

You are here: Home / Archives for Afghanistan

Just a ‘Mistake’: US airstrikes kill allied soldiers in Afghanistan

by

Helicopters attack outpost in broad daylight in what could be worst such incident in nearly 14 years of war

U.S.-led coalition has "made a very big mistake," said one official, after an attack on an Afghan outpost left at least ten soldiers dead. (Photo: File/Wikimedia Commons)

U.S.-led coalition has “made a very big mistake,” said one official, after an attack on an Afghan outpost left at least ten soldiers dead. (Photo: File/Wikimedia Commons)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

In what may be the worst “friendly fire” incident of the U.S. war in Afghanistan since it began in 2001, reports on Monday indicate that at least ten Afghan soldiers were killed and others wounded after their compound was fired on by U.S. military helicopters.

According to initial reports citing Afghan officials, a pair of U.S. gunships attacked the outpost in Logar Province in the morning hours. Pentagon officials have confirmed there was an “incident” in the area which is now under investigation.

Agence France-Presse reports:

The early morning raid in Baraki Barak district of Logar province comes as coalition forces increase air strikes on potential militant targets despite a drawdown of NATO forces after 13 years of war.

The bombing marked the second such incident in the area since last December when a NATO air strike killed five civilians and wounded six others.

“At 6am (0130 GMT) today, two US helicopters attacked a checkpoint in Baraki Barak,” district governor Mohammad Rahim Amin told reporters. “The checkpoint caught fire … and 10 Afghan army soldiers were killed,” he added, revising down a previous estimate that 14 soldiers were killed.

A statement by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense said that helicopters belonging to the U.S.-led military coalition had come under enemy attack in the area and returned fire, mistakenly hitting the army post.

Despite that statement, the Afghan army corps commander for the region, Sharif Yaftali, told the Washington Post that the U.S.-led coalition had “made a very big mistake” because the strike was during the daytime, and the outpost was perched on a hill top, making it visible for U.S. forces to determine that it was controlled by its allies.

“The Afghanistan flag was waving on our post, when we came under attack,” said Yaftali.

Twin attacks reported in Afghan capital Kabul

by

Taliban gunmen clash with government troops, hours after suicide bomber rams foreign convoy.

Police officers told Al Jazeera that an armoured vehicle carrying non-uniformed international advisers was targeted [AFP]

Police officers told Al Jazeera that an armoured vehicle carrying non-uniformed international advisers was targeted [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

Gunfire and explosions have been reported in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, hours after a Taliban suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into a convoy belonging to foreign forces, security officials said.

Police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi said that armed men entered a building close to an installation used by Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Tuesday afternoon.

Al Jazeera journalists in Kabul reported that the attack took place at a compound in Kabul’s District Eight, and gunmen had taken up positions within it.

Gunfire at the scene of the explosion was ongoing, and the Afghan government had deployed specialist troops to end the clashes.

Earlier, police officials told Al Jazeera that at least three Afghan civilians were wounded in the Shah Shaheed district of Kabul when, also in the city’s east, a Taliban fighter drove a car bomb in to a NATO convoy.

Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said the first attack, which was claimed by the Taliban, took place a few kilometres east of the centre of the city and plumes of smoke could be seen after the attack.

“Police told us that the target was a convoy, a car carrying international advisers who were not in military uniform, an armoured car,” Glasse said.

The attack follows a car bomb attack on NATO soldiers last week, which killed two Afghan civilians and injured 26 others, including women and children.

NATO said none of its troops were killed or injured in last week’s attack, which was also claimed by the Taliban.

A fortnight earlier, the armed group launched an attack on Afghanistan’s parliament, killing five people and losing another seven of its own members.

The Taliban launched its annual spring offensive in April.

A surge in attacks has taken a heavy toll on civilians, according to the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan.

In the first four months of 2015, civilian casualties jumped 16 percent from the same period last year, it said.

Taliban stages deadly attack on Afghan parliament

by

At least five people and seven attackers killed after suicide car bomb and gunfire rock sitting session of parliament.

The attack apparently started when a suicide car bomb exploded outside the parliament [Reuters]

The attack apparently started when a suicide car bomb exploded outside the parliament [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The Afghan parliament has been attacked by Taliban fighters in Kabul, with a series of explosions and gunfire forcing politicians to evacuate.

Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said five people were killed, in addition to the seven fighters who launched the attack on Monday.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the raid, which injured at least 21 people, including five women and three children.

About two hours after the initial explosion, police declared the operation had ended with seven attackers being killed – including a suicide car bomber.

“Suicide bombers have attacked outside the [parliamentary] building,” she said, adding that gunfire continued to be heard for more than an hour after the first explosion. “There are burning cars outside the building.”

A police source at the scene told Al Jazeera that the attack apparently started when a suicide car bomb exploded outside the parliament.

Attackers then continued the attack, firing from a building under construction across the street, the source said.

Police said at least three police officers were injured in the attack, along with others outside the building who could not yet be reached.

Local news organisations reported that at least six explosions were heard in the vicinity of the parliament.

Glasse, who was watching parliamentary proceedings on TV at the time of the attack, said that the parliamentary speaker was at the podium when the video camera started to shake.

“We heard two loud explosions and people nearby heard gunfire,” she said, adding that the politicians evacuated from the parliament.

“Right now, the parliament is empty and full of smoke.”

Monday’s session of parliament was well attended because the defence minister nominee was to be introduced by the second vice president. Neither was in the building at the time of the attack.

Members of parliament have now been evacuated to safety.

The Taliban has been on the offensive across the country in recent weeks – taking control of districts in northern Kunduz province and staging attacks in southern Helmand province.

Count all lives taken by Drone war, not just western ones: Human rights groups to US

by

Human rights organizations including Reprieve and Center for Constitutional Rights write open letter to President Barack Obama

Pakistani journalist and anti-drone campaigner Kareem Khan holds a photograph of his brother and teenage son, both killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2009. (Image courtesy of Reprieve)

Pakistani journalist and anti-drone campaigner Kareem Khan holds a photograph of his brother and teenage son, both killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2009. (Image courtesy of Reprieve)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

All victims of U.S. drone strikes and assassination attempts deserve to be acknowledged by the government that carried out their killing—not just citizens of western nations—human rights organizations charged (pdf) in an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama released on Wednesday.

In late April, the Obama administration publicly apologized for the drone killings of two civilians, U.S. citizen Warren Weinstein and Italian citizen Giovanni Lo Porto, in a U.S. strike that occurred in Pakistan in January 2015. For the first time in the drone war, the president pledged to pay compensation to the victims’ families.

But the president has repeatedly refused to acknowledge, let alone pay reparations for, the vast majority of people killed in over a decade of covert drone wars, the most of whom hail from Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

“We write to urge your administration to adopt the same approach to all other U.S. counterterrorism strikes in which civilians have been injured or killed—regardless of their nationalities,” reads the letter, which was signed by humanitarian and advocacy groups, including Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Reprieve.

“To that end, your administration should establish a systematic and transparent mechanism for post-strike investigations, which are made public, and provide appropriate redress to civilian victims,” the missive continues.

But the statement goes beyond calling for transparency and redress: “In addition to investigating individual strikes, acknowledging responsibility, and providing appropriate redress for civilian harm, we urge your administration to take essential steps to: publicly disclose standards and criteria governing ‘targeted killings’; ensure that U.S. lethal force operations abroad comply with international human rights and humanitarian law; and enable meaningful congressional oversight and judicial review.”

Many from heavily impacted areas and countries have called for an immediate end to the U.S. drone war altogether. “These drones attack us, and the whole world is silent,” declared Kareem Khan, a Pakistani journalist and anti-drone campaigner whose brother and teenage son were killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2009, addressing a 2011 anti-drone conference in Islamabad.

Wednesday’s letter includes examples of ten U.S. drone strikes that have left family and loved ones seeking redress, accountability, and simply, acknowledgement.

One such case is from October 24, 2012 in Pakistan: “A strike allegedly killed Mamana Bibi, a woman aged about 65 who was gathering vegetables in her family’s large, mostly vacant fields in Ghundi Kala, a village in North Waziristan.”

But the human toll goes far beyond these ten examples.

According to estimates from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, one of the few outfits publicly tracking such deaths, up to 1,273 people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan have been killed in CIA drone attacks and other covert operations since 2002.

Four Indians killed in Afghan guest house siege

by

kabul-siege

Kabul: Four Indians were killed when gunmen stormed a guest house here, trapping several foreign nationals inside and triggering hours-long overnight standoff with Afghan security forces. An American was also killed in the gunfight.

The attack started at about 0900 PM last night when three gunmen launched a brazen assault at the Park Palace Hotel, popular with foreigners and located in the Kolola Pushta area of the Kabul city.

Soon after the gunmen stormed the guest house, Afghan National Security Forces including Special Forces arrived and began striking back the attackers and also rescuing those under siege inside the guest house.

Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said security forces rescued 54 people from inside the guest house but five people lost their lives.

All three attackers were killed in the siege that lasted for about seven hours, ending in the wee hours of this morning.

“Unfortunately a few Indian casualties among others at the Kabul g/house attack today,” Indian Ambassador Amar Sinha tweeted but official sources later confirmed that two Indians were among the dead.

Two Indians, an American and two Afghans were killed in the attack, Khaama Press reported. At least six people were also wounded in the attack. One or two Indians were still unaccounted for, sources said.

United States Embassy in Kabul confirmed the death of one of American national in the attack.

A concert attended by foreigners and Afghans was due to begin at the guest house around the time the gunmen stormed the place.

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the siege on the guest house which has rooms for visitors and a residential area for those who live full-time in Kabul, including foreign aid workers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, currently on a three-day visit to China, tweeted last night, “In the aircraft I got news about the attack in Kabul. Am concerned about the situation & I pray for everyone’s safety.”

Kolola Pushta is home to several international guest houses and hotels and is near the Afghan interior ministry.

Today’s brazen assault was reminiscent of two attacks last year on a hotel and a restaurant in which 30 were killed.

Earlier today, gunmen opened fire at a meeting of Muslim clerics in Helmand, killing at least seven people. The Taliban, ousted from power in 2001, have stepped up attacks since they announced their “spring offensive” last month.

(PTI)

Four sentenced to death over brutal Afghan mob killing

by

Afghan court begins ruling on woman’s murder case, sentencing four men to death by hanging and eight others to jail.

Prosecutors alleged Farkhunda was beaten to death in an attack sparked by a bogus accusation she had burned a copy of the Quran [AP]

Prosecutors alleged Farkhunda was beaten to death in an attack sparked by a bogus accusation she had burned a copy of the Quran [AP]

by Al Jazeera

An Afghan court has sentenced four men to death by hanging for their roles in the mob killing of a woman in March.

The trial of 49 suspects, who were accused of taking part in the mob that killed the 27-year-old, known as Farkhunda, began on May 2. Nineteen police officers were among those facing charges in the trial.

Of the suspects sentenced on Wednesday, four were sentenced to death, eight were sentenced to 16 years in jail and 18 were set free due to a lack of evidence, Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse reported.

The judge adjourned the case until Saturday, when the remaining 19 will be sentenced.

Prosecutors have alleged that Farkhunda was beaten to death in a frenzied attack sparked by a bogus accusation that she had burned a copy of the Quran.

Glasse said the remaing 19 suspects are policemen, but their fate is still unclear.

“The 19 men still to be sentenced are policemen and that will be the interesting part of this trial because the Afghan law number 354 makes failure to render assistance a crime here and they too could be sentenced to jail,” she said

“Earlier this week the police said in court that they tried to to do their job and called for reinforcements but reinforcements did not come. The prosecutor told the police it is their job to protect her.

“This is really a test for the justice system, this case that has captured the attention of the nation. The trial has been televised live everyday and Afghans have been watching very closely.”

The defendants have the right to appeal their sentences. The charges included assault, murder and encouraging others to participate in the assault. The police officers were charged with neglecting their duties and failing to prevent the attack.

Mujub Ullah Farkunda, Farkhunda’s brother, told Al Jazeera they were not happy with the outcome.

“They have wasted our time. The trial only happened because of pressure from the government. The real perpetrators were not there.

“The government didn’t arrest the real murderers. They arrested innocent people off the street and have hidden the real perpetrators. There were more than 100 people involved and they sentenced only 4 to death,” Mujub added.

Farkhunda’s brutal killing shocked many Afghans, though some public and religious figures said it would have been justified if she had in fact damaged a Quran. A presidential investigation later found that she had not damaged a copy of the Muslim holy book.

Her last agonising and brutal hours were captured on mobile phone cameras by witnesses and those in the mob that attacked her. The videos of the assault circulated widely on social media.

They showed Farkhunda – who, like many Afghans, went by only one name – being beaten, run over with a car and burned before her bloodied body was thrown into the river.

The incident sparked nationwide outrage and soul-searching, as well as a civil society movement seeking to limit the power of clerics, strengthen the rule of law and improve women’s rights.

Body Count Report reveals at least 1.3 million lives lost to US-led war on terror

by

Although a conservative estimate, physicians’ groups say the figure ‘is approximately 10 times greater’ than typically reported

The rubble of a home reportedly hit by a U.S.-led coalition airstrike in Kafar Daryan in Syria. (Photo: Sami Ali / AFP/Getty Images)

The rubble of a home reportedly hit by a U.S.-led coalition airstrike in Kafar Daryan in Syria. (Photo: Sami Ali / AFP/Getty Images)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

How do you calculate the human costs of the U.S.-led War on Terror?

On the 12th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, groups of physicians attempted to arrive at a partial answer to this question by counting the dead.

In their joint report— Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the ‘War on Terror—Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival, and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War concluded that this number is staggering, with at least 1.3 million lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone since the onset of the war following September 11, 2001.

However, the report notes, this is a conservative estimate, and the total number killed in the three countries “could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.”

Furthermore, the researchers do not look at other countries targeted by U.S.-led war, including Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and beyond.

Even still, the report states the figure “is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated by the media and major NGOs.

In Iraq, at least 1 million lives have been lost during and since 2003, a figure that accounts for five percent of the nation’s total population. This does not include deaths among the estimated 3 million Iraqi refugees, many of whom were subject to dangerous conditions during this past winter.

Furthermore, an estimated 220,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, note the researchers. The findings follow a United Nations report which finds that civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2014 were at their highest levels since the global body began making reports in 2009.

The researchers identified direct and indirect deaths based on UN, government, and NGO data, as well as individual studies. While the specific number is difficult to peg, researchers say they hope to convey the large-scale of death and loss.

Speaking with Democracy Now! on Thursday, Dr. Robert Gould, president of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and co-author of the forward to the report, said:

“[A]t a time when we’re contemplating at this point cutting off our removal of troops from Afghanistan and contemplating new military authorization for increasing our operations in Syria and Iraq, this insulation from the real impacts serves our government in being able to continue to conduct these wars in the name of the war on terror, with not only horrendous cost to the people in the region, but we in the United States suffer from what the budgetary costs of unending war are.”

According to Gould’s forward, co-authored with Dr. Tim Takaro, the public is purposefully kept in the dark about this toll.

“A politically useful option for U.S. political elites has been to attribute the on-going violence to internecine conflicts of various types, including historical religious animosities, as if the resurgence and brutality of such conflicts is unrelated to the destabilization cause by decades of outside military intervention,” they write. “As such, under-reporting of the human toll attributed to ongoing Western interventions, whether deliberate of through self-censorship, has been key to removing the ‘fingerprints’ of responsibility.”

US to delay troop pullout from Afghanistan

by

President Barack Obama decides to maintain force of 9,800 through end of 2015 and stick to 2017 exit plan.

Obama said the US force would be kept at its current strength to train and assist Afghan forces [AP]

Obama said the US force would be kept at its current strength to train and assist Afghan forces [AP]

by Al Jazeera

US President Barack Obama has granted Afghan requests to slow the withdrawal of US troops from the country and said he would maintain a force of 9,800 through the end of 2015 while sticking to a 2017 exit plan.

“It was my assessment as commander in chief that it made sense for us to provide a few extra months for us to be able to help on things like logistics,” Obama said on Tuesday during a joint news conference with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani at the White House.

“The date for us to have completed our drawdown will not change,” he said. “Providing this additional timeframe during this fighting season for us to be able to help the Afghan security forces succeed is well worth it.”

Obama said that the US force would be kept at its current strength to train and assist Afghan forces, who took over responsibility for the fight against Taliban and other rebels at the start of the year.

The US president said that the pace of the US troop reduction in 2016 would be established later this year and the goal remained to consolidate US forces in the country in a presence at the Kabul embassy at the end of 2016.

Under a previous plan US forces were to have been cut to about half of the current level of just under 10,000 by the end of 2015, but US officials said improved relations with Afghan leaders contributed to a revision of the plan.

Plan welcomed

Since arriving on Sunday, Ghani has been feted by the Obama administration and is due to address Congress on Wednesday.

The welcome contrasts sharply with frosty relations that developed between Washington and Ghani’s predecessor Hamid Karzai.

Some US lawmakers had also called for a slower pullout of troop levels. US Representative Mac Thornberry, a Republican who leads the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said the decision announced on Tuesday was “appropriate.”

“Iraq has shown us the consequences of leaving a fragile ally too early,” he said in a statement. “The bottom line is that our own security is at stake.”

Ghani and Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah met at the presidential retreat at Camp David on Monday with top US officials including Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, who said Washington would fund Afghan security forces at least into 2017.

US soldier admits killing unarmed Afghans for sport

by

Jeremy Morlock, 23, tells US military court he was part of a ‘kill team’ that faked combat situations to murder Afghan civilians

US Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, who admitted being part of the 'kill team' that murdered unarmed Afghans. Photograph: Reuters

US Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, who admitted being part of the ‘kill team’ that murdered unarmed Afghans. Photograph: Reuters

by Paul Harris, The Guardian

An American soldier has pleaded guilty to being part of a “kill team” who deliberately murdered Afghan civilians for sport last year.

Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, told a military court he had helped to kill three unarmed Afghans. “The plan was to kill people, sir,” he told an army judge in Fort Lea, near Seattle, after his plea.

The case has caused outraged headlines around the world. In a series of videotaped confessions to investigators, some of which have been broadcast on American television, Morlock detailed how he and other members of his Stryker brigade set up and faked combat situations so that they could kill civilians who posed no threat to them. Four other soldiers are still to come to trial over the incidents.

The case is a PR disaster for America’s military and has been compared to the notorious incidents of torture that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This week the German magazine Der Spiegel published three pictures that showed American soldiers, including Morlock, posing with the corpse of a young Afghan boy as if it were a hunting trophy.

Some soldiers apparently kept body parts of their victims, including a skull, as souvenirs. In a statement issued in response to the publication of the photos the US army apologised to the families of the dead. “[The photos are] repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States army,” the statement said.

Morlock has told investigators that the murders took place between January and May last year and were instigated by an officer in his unit, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs. He described how elaborate plans were made to pick out civilian targets, kill them and then make their deaths look like they were insurgents. In his confession Morlock described shooting a victim as Gibbs tossed a grenade at him. “We identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or not,” Morlock said in the confession.

Morlock now stands to be sentenced to at least 24 years in jail but with eligibility for parole after seven years. That has come about because Morlock struck a plea bargain that will see a lighter sentence in return for testifying against his fellow soldiers.

Judge orders US government to stop suppressing evidence of torture and abuse

by

Ruling on Friday is latest development in years-long legal battle, in which the ACLU has argued the photos ‘are crucial to the public record’

"Indefinite Detention" (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)

“Indefinite Detention” (Photo: Justin Norman/flickr/cc)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. government to release more than 2,000 photographs showing abuse and torture of people detained by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decision is the latest development in a more than 10-year-long legal battle, in which the American Civil Liberties Unions has argued that disclosure of the records is critical for public debate and government accountability.

Many of the concealed photographs were taken by U.S. military service members and collected during more than 200 military investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some could be on par with, or worse than, those released from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

U.S. district judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled (pdf) that the government “is required to disclose each and all of the photographs” in response to a Freedom of Information Act Request from the ACLU. In the order, Hellerstein argued that the government did not adequately prove that “disclosure would endanger Americans.”

The decision gives the Solicitor General two months to decide whether to appeal.

The ACLU has pressed for the release of records relating to torture and extrajudicial killings of prisoners in U.S. custody around the world since 2003.

The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have vigorously fought to keep these photographs suppressed, and in 2009, the White House collaborated with Congress to secretly change FOIA law to enable the concealment of the images, arguing it is necessary to protect national security.

However, ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer argued in response to Friday’s ruling, “To allow the government to suppress any image that might provoke someone, somewhere, to violence would be to give the government sweeping power to suppress evidence of its own agents’ misconduct. Giving the government that kind of censorial power would have implications far beyond this specific context.”

“The photos are crucial to the public record,” Jaffer continued. “They’re the best evidence of what took place in the military’s detention centers, and their disclosure would help the public better understand the implications of some of the Bush administration’s policies. And the Obama administration’s rationale for suppressing the photos is both illegitimate and dangerous.”

KNOW US

GET INVOLVED

PROMOTE

Archives