US soldiers alleged to have murdered civilians and dismembered bodies in Afghanistan

[Kuya]

From Der Spiegel:

The United States and NATO are concerned that reactions could be intense to the publication of images documenting killings committed by US soldiers in Afghanistan. The images appeared in the most recent edition of SPIEGEL, which hit the newsstands on Monday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already telephoned with her Afghan counterpart to discuss the situation. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has likewise made contact with officials in Kabul. The case threatens to strain already fragile US-Afghan relations at a time when the two countries are negotiating over the establishment of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan.

The piece in SPIEGEL reconstructs some of the atrocities and includes three previously unknown photographs. Among other things, they show two of the suspected killers posing next to a corpse. The victim in the image is Gul Mudin, an Afghan man killed on Jan. 15, 2010 in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. In total, SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL TV has obtained a significant number of photos and videos.

The suspects are accused of having killed civilians for no reason and then of trying to make it look as though the killings had been acts of self-defense. Some of the accused have said the acts had been tightly scripted.

In one incident, which has been reconstructed based on documents from the investigation, the soldiers themselves detonate a hand grenade in order to make it look like they were the subjects of an attack before killing a man. One of those who allegedly participated, Adam Winfield, 21, described the incident to his father in a chat on the social networking site Facebook. "They made it look like the guy threw a grenade at them and mowed him down," SPIEGEL quotes Winfield as having written in the chat.

In a second incident on Feb. 22, 2010, one of the members of the "kill team" who had been carrying an old Russian Kalashnikov, fired it before pulling out another gun and shooting 22-year-old Afghan Marach Agha. In a third incident on May 2, 2010, it appears that a hand grenade attack was again staged before the shooting and killing of Mullah Allah Dad.

The 12 men are also facing further charges of desecration of corpses, illegal possession of photos of corpses, drug abuse and acts of bodily injury against comrades.

Al jazeera:

A US soldier who allegedly killed three Afghan civilians for fun will face a full court martial.

Jeremy Morlock, one of the group of 12 accused soldiers, faces charges of premeditated murder, military authorities said Friday.

The case has drawn intense media scrutiny because Morlock and fellow soldiers are accused of taking ghoulish photos of corpses and taking body parts as war trophies.

The charge sheets include macabre allegations of dismembering corpses. Authorities have not specified if the bones they say some men took were from the bodies of slain civilians.

The case could undermine the war effort as US-led forces try to win over wary Afghans and counter Taliban fighters in the battlefield of Kandahar.

US officials acknowledge they are concerned about the potential fallout. Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon press secretary, said that the charges represented "an aberration" for an American force of nearly 100,000 in Afghanistan.

The prosecution of the 12 soldiers stems from their deployment as part of the 5th Stryker Brigade, recently renamed the 2nd Stryker Brigade, in Kandahar province.

The investigation has raised questions about whether the accused, all enlisted men, were influenced by commanders who may have been contemptuous of the Army's counterinsurgency doctrine in Afghanistan, which emphasised building the trust of Afghan citizens.

“There are severe problems with attitudes toward counterinsurgency strategies, namely winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, in the leadership as well as among the soldiers in the Stryker brigade,'' said Stjepan Mestrovic, a Texas A&M professor and author of a book on misconduct by US military personnel in Iraq.

“Soldiers have told me that they resented having tea with village elders knowing that others in the villages collaborated with the Taliban or were making IEDs to kill Americans,'' he said this week.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...752310,00.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/am...956730948.html

I think the important things to take from this are: the potential fallout for US interests in Afghanistan, making it much harder to achieve their goals there. The other is sort of the folly of nation building and trying to "win hearts and minds" while simultaniously fighting an insurgent force that can blend in with the normal population.

Censored photoes are located in the Spiegel link.

[6souls]

do those links have the pics or should i post the ones TheDirty.com have?

[Kuya]

Spiegel only has 3 censored pictures.

[Rhinox]

In before Thierin and co. come in and say the troops can do no wrong.

[6souls]

these?

[tyven]

this is all very terribad but i think whats worse is that i am in no way surprised by any of it

[Kuya]

Spoiler: show

these?

Yea, but you should spoiler them when you post them like that.

[Thiefami]

huge shocker. they are white lol

[Dimmauk]

Those pics could be faked.

[tyven]

a dead terrorist is a dead terrorist

[Kuya]

Those pics could be faked.

What makes you think they could be faked?

[Rhinox]

trolled

[Zeb]

huge shocker. the guy is a Morlock

ftfy

[miokomioko]

in before shouldn't blankity blank blank in a war zone.

[Stumblingdrunk]

in before shouldn't blankity blank blank in a war zone.

Blanking is the best thing to do in a war zone, stop posting nonsense.

[Demosthenes11]

What makes you think they could be faked?

[Shenrien]

Blanking is the best thing to do in a war zone, stop posting nonsense.

I also would have accepted

Don't you worry about blank, let me worry about blank.

and..

Blank..? BLANK!?!

Spoiler: show

http://www.josesandoval.com/images/that_guy.gif

[archibaldcrane]

How about

Soldiers gonna sold.

[Draylo]

Doesn't surprise me much. A lot of FPS meat heads join the military.

[miokomioko]

I also would have accepted

Don't you worry about blank, let me worry about blank.

and..

Blank..? BLANK!?!

Spoiler: show

http://www.josesandoval.com/images/that_guy.gif

US soldiers alleged to have murdered civilians and dismembered bodies in Afghanistan?!?! You're not looking at the big picture!