UPDATE 1344 GMT: The Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has responded to this article, which we were sure would spark debate, on Twitter. Here is the conversation between EA's James Miller and @ISAFmedia.
ISAFmedia: That story is utterly false. Accurate civilian casualty numbers for that period in this report.
JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia your stats, according to Porter - 6,282 dead in SOF night raids in 10 months. He's arguing that they aren't all insurgents...so, Porter is arguing that there are discrepancies between insurgents killed and total killed.
JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia actually, I encourage you to see stats on original article. my mistake on "6282" number. [6,282 is the number of raids claimed over the period]
ISAFmedia: Methodology based on # of shots fired. Story says somebody dies every time a shot is fired. WRONG...@jmiller_ea It's ridiculous to state that a target dies every time a shot is fired, then base casualty totals on the number of gunshots.
JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia somebody from ISAF leaked some very high, very confusing numbers bit.ly/sMLC8D and official report does not clarify...@ISAFmedia IPS is claiming that they got data from WaPo, leaked from ISAF bit.ly/sMLC8D [Some data was also obtained from the New York Times, but the ISP article doesn't contain a single hyperlink to the original source material.
ISAFmedia: @JMiller_EA Fact remains: His claim of 1500 civ dead in period cited is completely untrue... Official report cites the most accurate CIVCAS # available. No idea where they're getting this other info... act also remains: Insurgents cause +80% of CIVCAS. Any assumption that ISAF is leading cause is also utterly false
JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia worth noting that EA reposted the article to spark this discussion. These are serious claims by major publication, IPS... IPS claim: "2,599 (targets) killed from May 2010 to mid-February 2011" in night raids. Accurate?
This conversation is, hopefully, not finished, as we'd like to properly investigate Porter's claims, and ISAF's response.
The original article by Gareth Porter is below:
Gareth Porter writes for Inter Press Service:
U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on civilian casualties in 2010 had said the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by insurgents was the leading cause of civilian deaths, with 904.
Except for a relatively few women and children killed by accident, the civilians who died in the raids were all adult males who were counted as insurgents in press releases and official data released by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The data on night raids, which were given to selected news media, cover three distinct 90-day night raid campaigns from May through July 2010, early August to early November, and mid-November to mid- February. The combined totals for the three periods indicate that a minimum of 2,599 rank and file insurgents were killed and an additional 723 “leaders” killed or captured in raids. (See Official Data on Night Raids below.)
Assuming conservatively that one-third of the alleged leaders were killed, the total number of alleged insurgents killed in the raids was 2,844.
SOF night raids during the 10-month period totaled 6,282, according to the same ISAF data.
A third crucial statistic, repeated frequently by U.S. and NATO officials in 2010 and 2011, is that shots were fired by SOF units in only 20 percent of night raids.
A U.S. military source who has been briefed on SOF operation confirmed to IPS what has been generally known among outside observers — that any time shots are fired by SOF troops in a night raid, someone is killed.
If shots were fired in 20 percent of the 6,282 raids, it means that 2,844 were killed in 1,256 raids.
With very rare exceptions, night raids target only individuals rather than groups. They are carried out at night because they are aimed at catching the individual at home asleep and therefore taken completely by surprise.
Therefore, a minimum of 1,588 people (2,844 total killed minus the 1,256 targets in the lethal raids) were killed in the raids even though they weren’t targeted.
Not every one of the untargeted individuals killed in night raids was a noncombatant civilian. But the socio-cultural and physical setting of the raids guarantees that the percentage of civilians in that total is extremely high.
Within the Afghan compounds that are the physical targets of U.S. night raids live extended family households that normally include not only the male head of family and his wife, but his brothers, sons, and cousins and their families.