US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan...

charlietwo · 04-04-2010, 19:26

Courtesy of the lovely UK Times. Headline on DrudgeReport.com http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7087637.ece

Quote:

US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.

Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.

The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies.

“Despite earlier reports we have determined that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale, a Nato spokesman. The coalition continued to deny that there had been a cover-up and said that its legal investigation, which is ongoing, had found no evidence of inappropriate conduct.

Anyone have some first, second, or third-hand knowledge of this? It would be nice to trust news articles at face value, but what crazy fool would do that?

**The Reaper** · 04-05-2010, 08:03

I saw the article as well.

Sounds like a cover-up by the bad guys trying to explain the knife wounds on the dead bodies they dropped and possibly shot up with AKs.

Not buying the BS explanation in the article.

TR

Richard · 04-05-2010, 08:08

Based on the story and the situation, this could be a true statement:

"Afghan investigators believe that Mr Zahir was carrying an AK47 and wanted to avenge his brother’s killers. The women were clustered around him, trying to pull him inside the house, when the second US {soldier} opened fire, killing all four of them."

WW2 'guess-timates' for combat zone losses are:

military...22-25 million
civilian...40-52 million

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

Utah Bob · 04-05-2010, 08:38

Always use alcohol to cleanse the wound to prevent infection.....on a corpse.

C0B2A · 04-05-2010, 08:56

Sounds like a load of crap to me as well. Sounds like some bad guy PR... that the times ate up.

Ryanr · 04-05-2010, 12:39

The NY Times has an article on it too: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/wo...html?ref=world

Quote:

On Sunday night the American-led military command in Kabul issued a statement admitting that “international forces” were responsible for the deaths of the women. Officials have previously stated that American Special Operations forces and Afghan forces conducted the operation.

The statement said that “investigators could not conclusively determine how or when the women died, due to lack of forensic evidence” but that they had nonetheless “concluded that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men.”

“We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families,” said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, a spokesman for the NATO command in Kabul.

The admission was an abrupt about-face. In a statement soon after the raid, NATO had claimed that its raiding party had stumbled upon the “bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed” and hidden in a room in the house. Military officials had also said later that the bodies showed signs of puncture and slashing wounds from a knife, and that the women appeared to have been killed several hours before the raid.

spherojon · 04-09-2010, 13:02

The LA Times just did an article on this

One more reason why I hate the media.