Afghanistan Update: US Military Reverses Position, Admits Killing Three Women

UPDATE 1255 GMT: The International Security Assistance Force has posted its official statement "that international forces were responsible for the deaths of three women who were in the same compound where two men were killed by the joint Afghan-international patrol searching for a Taliban insurgent".

The statement concludes, "'We regret any confusion caused by the initial statements and are committed to improving our coordination and understanding of Afghan culture and customs,' said [Brigadier General Eric] Tremblay.



ISAF officials will discuss the results of the investigation with the family of the individuals killed, apologize for what happened, and will provide compensation in accordance with local customs."

On 13 March, we carried a report from Jerome Starkey of The Times of London, “A night raid carried out by US and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up." We also carried the denial of the International Security Assistance Force: the report was "categorically false".

We took some heat for carrying the reports of killings of civilians by the US military. One reader commented, "This story is blatantly biased and filled with a bunch of ‘allegations’....Good luck with all that ‘Death to America’ bullshit."

This just in from The New York Times, picking up on Starkey's latest report (but not crediting him by name):

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.


The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred.

Starkey's article offers more detail:

A senior Afghan official involved in a government investigation told The Times: “I think the special forces lied to [commander of US forces, General Stanley] 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, toldThe 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.