Afghanistan Times
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A damning report by a US advocacy group, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), accused CIA-backed Afghan strike groups of committing extrajudicial executions, orchestrating disappearances, conducting indiscriminate airstrikes, attacking medical facilities and carrying out other violations of international humanitarian law. The 61-page-long report alleged that these strike units belonging to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) committed the summary executions and grave offenses without accountability. HRW further said that operating under the framework of NDS, these troops have been essentially recruited, trained, equipped and overseen by the CIA – something which signifies that the US intelligence agency is equally complicit in these wicked atrocities. However, the fact check of this report is still not clear, and it is hard to justify at the moment. But, this is while the Afghan government reacted to the HRW report, acknowledging that although the report had reflected some realities, there was some information that required clarification and thus it asked for some time to come up with a thorough response. Also, the Afghan security forces and their US counterparts, according to the report, contend that their kill-and-capture operations are necessary because the Taliban infiltrate into civilian population and areas. However, this is not a satisfactory justification for killing civilians indiscriminately and disproportionately. It is, in fact, the poor intelligence and these human rights abuses that result in giving rise to hatred among civilians against the government and foreign forces. Consequently, such people find refuge with insurgents after losing family members and resort to violence in order to seek retribution against the committers. It’s common knowledge now that after numerous cases, the bereaved relatives of the victims have been turned into rebels by the very ones who call themselves the most civilized and the defenders of human rights. The government and the US forces should take this issue seriously and launch an investigation into these allegations.
The government should take the issue on its top priority. Both, Afghan and US security officials should work to find out the realty, and in case of correctness, the culprits must not go unpunished. War impunity is no longer acceptable, and this trend must come to an end. What is important in this case is the gravity of the issue – at one hand, the Afghans proud of their security forces, including NDS operatives that are making all out efforts to maintain peace, while at other, some cases are reported where civilians were killed at the name of insurgents. The human violation case must be probed comprehensively, fair and freely.
