10 May 2011, Human Rights First: Detained and Denied in Afghanistan: How to Make U.S. Detention Comply with the Law (PDF)
9 May 2011, PBS: Did a controversial U.S. airstrike kill the wrong man?
May 10, 2011
Murky Identities and Ties Hinder NATO's Hunt for Afghan Insurgents, Report Says
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two new reports addressing human rights issues in Afghanistan have raised questions about how NATO troops are conducting the war. Both reports center on a question that has vexed international forces since the war began: How can the military be sure it has killed, detained or made deals with the right people?
A report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network [1] challenges the accuracy of American intelligence used in what are known as targeted killings, and makes a case study of the killing of an alleged Qaeda-affiliated operative in Takhar Province who was attacked by NATO jets as he traveled in a convoy through a rural area. The report offers evidence that NATO forces got the wrong man and that the insurgent commander they were seeking is alive in Pakistan -- an interview with him is included in the report. [The public television program Frontline also addressed the case in this segment [2] of its program "Kill/Capture."]
However, NATO officials stand by their account and the intelligence it was based on, and insist that they got the man they were seeking, Mohammed Amin.
"In this instance, multiple forms of intelligence confirm that coalition forces targeted the correct person after tracking his activities for nearly six months," said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a NATO spokesman. Colonel Dorrian said the evidence included confirmation from a family member and "additional intelligence" showing that Mr. Amin had operated as a so-called shadow governor in Takhar on behalf of Taliban insurgents.
The other report, by Human Rights First, [3] examines the growing number of detainees and the legal rights accorded them at the detention facility in Parwan, which replaced the detention area at Bagram air base. As of April 23, the Parwan facility housed 1,750 detainees, according to Cmdr. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for the American military's detention operations here.
The report notes a number of improvements in detention operations, but emphasizes that many detainees insist they were taken into custody based on false intelligence and that they take that view back to their villages when released. Detainees remain unable to see much of the evidence used to apprehend them or hold them for unlimited periods of time.
"In the view of their families and communities, the United States is arbitrarily detaining people based on false intelligence," the reports says.
Underpinning both reports is the difficulty of obtaining accurate information about whether people are who they say. It is a problem faced by foreigners working here, whether as diplomats, aid workers, journalists or human rights workers. The United States government and other countries' governments have repeatedly entered into contracts with corrupt people and paid off rights abusers thinking they were legitimate actors.
"We need to be careful," said Nadir Nadiry, the deputy director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "Sometimes I've gone face to face with NATO because we talked to the families and it seems clear that people had been wrongly killed or detained, and then it was countered by information that shows I was naïve," he said.
There have been substantial improvements, but NATO still makes mistakes, he said. "Our findings show that in the last year, it has been much more precise in terms of what the community and people are telling us," Mr. Nadiry said. "Most of the time, they hit the right target, but yes, sometimes it goes wrong."
The incident recounted in the Afghanistan Analysts report occurred on Sept. 2. NATO jets bombed a convoy carrying the man who was alleged to be working with the Taliban in Takhar Province.
The bombs killed him and killed or wounded 8 to 12 others, believed to be insurgents, according to a NATO statement at the time.
Within hours it became clear that at least one person in the convoy was a candidate for Parliament, who was wounded. He insisted that the other people in the convoy were campaign workers accompanying him to three village rallies. NATO's target was his uncle, who was helping to support his campaign, he said. The government of President Hamid Karzai and the local provincial government said much the same.
The report by Afghanistan Analysts traces the uncle's life, in which he fought at various times on different sides and was captured and tortured by different groups. But in the period before his death, he was living peacefully in Kabul. According to the report, NATO asserted that a Taliban leader active in Takhar, whom the man knew, used his name as an alias, adding a further layer of confusion and leaving the overall sense that a number of players have such shifting allegiances and identities that it may be nearly impossible to make accurate judgments about them.