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Australian elite forces involved in 39 unlawful killings, inquiry claims
An official inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan by Australian special forces has found troops were involved in the unlawful killing of 39 civilians or prisoners amid a “warrior culture”.
Addressing a press conference overnight Thursday, after the findings were released, chief of the Australian Defense Forces General Angus Campbell “sincerely and unreservedly” apologized to the people of Afghanistan for the conduct of troops as noted in the report.
“It would have devastated the lives of Afghan families and communities, causing immeasurable pain and suffering,” he said.
Australia’s Defense Force is recommending that Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) should investigate 19 individuals from the Australian Special Forces over 36 alleged war crimes, including murder and cruel treatment of non-combatants in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2013.
“Those alleged to have been unlawfully killed were … prisoners, farmers or other civilians. This shameful record includes alleged instances in which new patrol members were coerced to shoot a prisoner in order to achieve that soldier’s first kill, in an appalling process known as blooding,” Campbell said.
The report states there is “credible information” that weapons or handheld radios were sometimes allegedly placed near a body by Australian forces in order to portray that the person had been killed in action.
Campbell meanwhile stated he had accepted all of the inquiry’s 143 recommendations.
The inquiry was established in 2016 to investigate allegations that Australian special forces had breached the law of armed conflict in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison contacted Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani just hours before the release of the report overnight and expressed “his deepest sorrow” over the alleged misconduct of Australian troops in Afghanistan.
In a statement issued by the Afghan government, it stated: “(Morrison) assured the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan of the investigations and to ensuring justice.”
CNN meanwhile reported that according to Nishank Motwani, deputy director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit in Kabul, the inquiry’s report was likely to leave Afghans feeling “a sense of despair, vindication and anger that foreign forces can so easily get away with cold-blooded murder.”
“The report will allow the Taliban to blame foreign forces for the suffering of Afghan civilians even though Taliban fighters are responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 civilians in the past decade,” he said, adding that any remaining Australian personnel in Afghanistan may be under threat of retaliation.
Former president Hamid Karzai said in a meeting with Iran’s ambassador and special representative, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, that education of girls was a “vital issue” for Afghanistan.
Karzai said he appreciated Iran’s cooperation and its standing with the Afghan people, especially Iran’s contributions to education in Afghanistan.
During the meeting, Karzai said peace and stability in the region are in the interest of all regional countries.
A shipment of humanitarian aid from Uzbekistan was handed over on Thursday to the local officials of Balkh province in the trade port of Hairatan.
Local authorities said the aid, which includes flour, oil, wheat, sugar and meat, has been handed over by Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya governor to the governor of Balkh.
The governor of Surkhandarya stated the purpose of sending this aid was to support the people of Afghanistan and stressed the need for the development of good relations between the two countries.
Islamabad’s special envoy for Afghanistan Asif Durrani said on Wednesday that Pakistan has suffered more due to Afghanistan’s internal situation than Pakistan has suffered in three wars with India in terms of blood spilt and finances drained.
Durrani said at a one-day International Conference titled “Pakistan in the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape”, which was organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) and the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), that over 80,000 Pakistanis died in the two decades of the War on Terror and that his country was still counting its dead and injured.
“After the withdrawal of NATO forces, it was hoped that peace in Afghanistan would bring peace to the region. However, such expectations were short-lived,” he said.
He also stated that attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group on Pakistan’s border areas increased by 65 percent, while suicide attacks increased by 500 percent.
“The TTP’s enhanced attacks on Pakistan while using Afghan soil have been a serious concern for Pakistan. Another worrying aspect is the participation of Afghan nationals in these attacks,” he said.
Durrani also said Pakistan had suffered geopolitically since the Soviet Union invaded the neighboring country.
“The post-9/11 world order has negatively impacted Pakistan. Apart from losing 80,000 citizens’ lives, including 8,000 law enforcement agency personnel, the country’s economic opportunity cost is estimated at $150 billion,” Durrani said.
Talking about the future outlook for Pakistan in the regional context, Durrani said that while “our eastern neighbor is likely to continue with its anti-Pakistan pursuits, the western border poses an avoidable irritant in the short to medium term.”
However, he said Pakistan can overcome its difficulties with Afghanistan, including the TTP challenge.
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