CIA-backed Afghan forces accused of “committing war crimes”
Human Rights Watch has accused the Afghan security forces of committing serious “war crimes.” These units are supported, trained, and equipped by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In a report, Human Rights Watch accused the Afghan security forces of carrying out acts such as night raids on homes, torturing and killing civilians, and killing innocent citizens in their homes.
"Spiegel Online" wrote on Thursday, October 31 (November 29), that the report documented 14 severe attacks between the end of 2017 and mid-2019, which the human rights organization assessed as war crimes.
Human Rights Watch says Afghan special forces have killed, abducted, and disappeared civilians without authorization and in violation of the law. The units have also been accused of carrying out armed raids on several clinics.
The report of this organization emphasizes that although the Afghan special forces are considered a subsidiary of the Afghan National Security Organization and are trained and equipped by the CIA, they operate outside the chain of command of these organizations.
According to this report, a large portion of the Afghan Special Forces militias are recruited by the CIA and are supported in terms of military equipment and logistics.
Night raid and arbitrary detention
One of the tasks of these units is to track down and arrest insurgents and militants opposed to the Afghan government. However, the Human Rights Watch report states that these groups mainly conduct their operations at night and in some cases do not inform family members and relatives of the locations where detainees are being transferred.
CIA-trained forces have also been accused of carrying out "survival executions" of detainees in some cases.
Human Rights Watch's research indicates that many of the nighttime raids were carried out based on flawed security information, in some cases the attackers mistook the identities of the residents of the house, and the real motivation for some attacks was political rivalry and disagreement between different groups.
According to the report, many of the night raids were accompanied by airstrikes in which civilians were killed indiscriminately or disproportionately.
Human Rights Watch has called for the disbandment of the Afghan security forces' special forces units. The United Nations estimates that 205 civilians were killed in operations by these units between the beginning of this year and September, a 16 percent increase over the same period last year.
Unprecedented increase in US airstrikes
The human rights organization says that in September, the number of airstrikes by US troops in Afghanistan also increased, reaching the highest level since 2013.
The President of the United States announced at a ceremony commemorating the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11, 2001, that in recent days, American forces in Afghanistan have targeted the "enemy" more intensely than ever.
Donald Trump had predicted that these attacks would continue with intensity in the coming days. Washington suspended peace talks between US representatives and the extremist Islamists on December 7th after an American soldier was killed in a Taliban attack.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy for Afghanistan, announced on September 1 that US and Taliban representatives were "on the verge" of reaching a final agreement after nine rounds of negotiations in Qatar, and that he would travel to Kabul to consult with the central government.
The agreement was supposed to lead to direct talks between Kabul and Taliban representatives. Khalilzad had expressed hope that the talks would lead to a “united and empowered Afghanistan” that would not pose a threat to the United States, its allies, or other countries.
CIA's Independent Programs in Afghanistan
With the beginning of the presence of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2001, the CIA also launched a parallel and separate program to recruit, train, and equip local militias to confront Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Criticism of the special forces has grown as reports of their violent operations have increased. In its latest report, Human Rights Watch called for an independent investigation into the activities of the special forces, based on interviews with 39 eyewitnesses to night raids in Kabul, Kandahar, Ghazni, Helmand, Nangarhar, Paktia, Uruzgan, Wardak, and Zabul provinces, as well as reports from local human rights organizations.
Human Rights Watch, while calling on the United States and the central government of Afghanistan to disband these groups, has called for cooperation in conducting investigations into their activities and prosecuting those who, according to the organization, have committed war crimes.
Menschenrechtler werfen afghanischen Sondereinheiten Kriegsverbrechen vor
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/human-rights-watch-wirft-afghanischen-sondereinheiten-kriegsverbrechen-vor-a-1294210.html
Source: DW
