Killings of Afghan Civilians Recall Haditha
morr...@mailinator.com
April 20, 2007
Killings of Afghan Civilians Recall Haditha
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
After it became clear last year that several marines had killed 24
civilians in Haditha, Iraq, following an attack on their convoy of
Humvees, the Marine Corps, which had initially played down the
massacre, began an offensive of a different kind.
Last May, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps at
the time, went to Iraq to express deep concern to his marines and to
reinforce what he called the "core values" that required them to
respond to danger with thoughtful precision.
But almost a year later, marines killed at least 10 civilians in
Afghanistan in an episode that bore some striking similarities to the
Haditha killings and suggested that the lesson had not taken, even in
a platoon of combat veterans wearing the badge of the elite new Marine
Corps Special Operations forces.
Marine Corps officials said the unit, whose members undergo at least
four months of specialized military training, did not receive specific
values training addressing the lessons of Haditha. The actions of the
30 marines on patrol in Afghanistan appeared to contradict many of the
edicts General Hagee had implored the marines to remember.
"We use lethal force only when justified, proportional and, most
importantly, lawful," General Hagee declared in a series of talks he
gave at Marine bases around the world. "We must regulate force and
violence," he added. "We protect the noncombatants we find on the
battlefield."
A preliminary military investigation found that the marines killed at
least 10 civilians and wounded dozens along a stretch of road near
Jalalabad on March 4, and no evidence that they were being fired upon.
The killings illustrate the difficulty American forces have
encountered in fighting an enemy who often wears no uniform, uses
civilians for cover and understands the limits of the American
military's strict rules of engagement.
But they also show how hard it can be for officers to control the
actions of heavily armed troops in the heat of battle.
As the marines did in Haditha, those on patrol in Afghanistan began
shooting at civilians in reaction to an attack, in this case a suicide
bomber who drove into their convoy as it traveled to Jalalabad from
Torkham and detonated his explosives, said Lt. Col. Lou Leto, a
spokesman for Army Maj. Gen. Frank Kearney, the commander of all
American Special Operations forces in the region.
"When the marines recovered from the blast, they thought they were
taking fire, so they returned fire," Colonel Leto said Wednesday,
paraphrasing findings of the inquiry, in which the marines and
civilian witnesses had been interviewed.
As the convoy sped away, several marines shot at people near the side
of the road, in cars on the shoulders or working in fields nearby,
Colonel Leto said. As they did in Haditha, the marines near Jalalabad
overreacted to the initial attack, the investigation suggests, firing
at unarmed civilians who happened to be nearby.
"The evidence that we found was that they just weren't fighters,"
Colonel Leto said. "They saw people in the fields. They thought these
people were carrying weapons, but they could have been tools."
Colonel Leto said by telephone from the United Arab Emirates that the
marines had fired on several cars. "Some cars they thought were taking
aggressive actions, another was not following directions," he said.
"You can imagine, you are hit with a pretty good blast, the air gets
sucked out of you, you have to make judgment calls real quick."
The military report found that the marines had killed 10 people,
including an elderly man and a young woman, and wounded 33 others. But
a report by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said
the marines had killed 12 people and wounded 35.
As in Haditha, many of the civilians killed in Afghanistan were women
and children, a detailed report by the human rights group said.
General Kearney ordered the entire company, the first Special Forces
unit sent into battle since the Marines Special Operations command was
formed 14 months ago, to leave Afghanistan at the beginning of April,
Colonel Leto said. He also referred the matter to the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service.
The platoon involved in the ambush and subsequent killings was
responsible for gathering intelligence in the field and capturing or
killing enemy fighters, said Maj. Cliff Gilmore, a spokesman for the
Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. The marines were drawn
from a Marine Force Reconnaissance unit and have an average of seven
years of military experience and more than 15 months of combat
experience in Iraq or Afghanistan. Colonel Leto said, "They were still
new on the scene." He declined to say how many marines had fired or
possibly killed civilians but, without elaborating, he said marines
being questioned have been "separated" from the unit.
All marines get instructions on the laws of armed conflict, the Geneva
Conventions and the rules of engagement, which require positive
identification of hostile intent before shooting. But General
Kearney's month-long investigation seems to indicate that those rules
were violated by an elite unit, military officers said.
"You do ask, 'How did this happen?' " said an officer familiar with
the inquiry, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And it's a fair
question."