Американские военные выпустили плененныx в рейде 23 января
Приветствую
Это когда они убили 15 и взяли 27 в плен "Потому что мы удостоверились, что они не Талибан и не Аль-Кайда". Взяли иx "Потому что эти 27 стреляли по нам и не были в военной форме".
Спецподразделения проникли в лагерь, увидели, что там афганцы и поэтому решили, что перед ними талибанцы. Были сообщения, что афганское начальство раздало $1000 100-долларовыми бумажками семьям погибшиx, что отрицается.
Один из ключевыx моментов грядущего расследования - не навели ли иx на цель противники. Карзая - разобраться чужими руками.
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Prisoners taken in flawed raid released
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
Published 2/6/2002
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. military Wednesday released 27 prisoners taken in a Jan. 23 assault on an alleged Taliban hideout near Hazar Qadam, having determined they were associated with neither the Taliban nor al Qaida.
At least 15 people were killed in the raid by a U.S. special forces team.
The prisoners were handed over to Afghan authorities in Tarin Kowt. They had been in U.S. custody in Kandahar since the midnight raid two weeks ago.
They were released "because we determined they were not Taliban forces and not affiliated with al Qaida," said Maj. Ralph Mills, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command.
The suspects were taken prisoner "because these 27 folks were shooting at us and they were not wearing uniforms," Mills told United Press International.
According to the Pentagon, the special forces team assaulted what it initially thought to be an al Qaida hideout, comprising at least three buildings, two of them inside a walled compound. Upon entering the facility, they determined the occupants to be Afghan so assumed they were Taliban. According to the Pentagon, the Afghans started shooting at U.S. soldiers, and a firefight occurred.
An AC-130 returned to the scene a few hours later and destroyed the facility, igniting the thousands of rounds of ammunition and small arms stored there.
The New York Times reported from Hazar Qadam a few days later that local residents said the alleged hideout was actually a government weapons collection facility connected to Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and the people inside were guarding it from Taliban or Afghan warlords who might try to raid the cache.
National Public Radio reported this week Afghan leaders have distributed $1,000 in crisp American $100 bills to the families of the dead. Mills says the military has no knowledge of that operation.
The circumstances surrounding the raid are under investigation by a high-ranking officer.
"I don't want to prejudge what the investigation will show, but I think it is entirely possible that everyone in a situation like this ... let me make it generic: in a situation like this, everyone can be correct," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said at a Monday briefing intended to be about the Pentagon's 2003 budget request.
"...(W)hen the dust settled and everyone looked around, that it may well turn out that in a situation like that, you will in fact have people who are friendly and people who are not friendly, and the people who are not friendly initiate the fire; the return fire then comes in and ends up, unfortunately, killing or wounding some individuals that might have been friendly," he said.
One of the questions to be answered by the investigation, according to Mills, is whether the U.S. military was duped into attacking the facility by an Afghan warlord who opposes Karzai's leadership. It is a danger the Pentagon has acknowledged as a general fact of life in Afghanistan. U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks and commanders on the ground say they especially are careful with this type of intelligence and act only when information has been verified.
The military said it stands by the intelligence that led to the assault, and supports the actions of the special forces soldiers who fired in self-defense, Mills said.
