U.S. disputes U.N. report pointing to scores of Afghan civilian deaths

The report relied primarily on the word of villagers.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A U.S. investigation released Tuesday disputed a U.N. report that found “credible evidence” that up to 90 civilians died in a raid on a western Afghan village, saying an after-battle assessment found most of the victims were Taliban fighters.

The military probe found that up to seven civilians and between 30 and 35 Taliban militants were killed in an operation in Azizabad village in the early morning hours of Aug. 22. The U.N. backed a finding by the Afghan government that all the victims were civilians.

The competing claims illustrate the difficulty of determining how many civilians fall victim in a war fought in distant mountains and densely populated villages.

U.S. officials say they face significant challenges both in identifying Taliban fighters, who mix easily with the general population, and because of incentives to falsely claim civilian casualties.

“The enemy knowingly hides behind women and children, they dress in burqas,” Maj. Gen. Jeffery J. Schloesser told The Associated Press on Monday. “The enemy makes it extraordinarily difficult to avoid civilian casualties. We don’t even know it [civilian casualties occurred] until the fighting is over.”

In addition, the U.S. has long said that Taliban militants pressure Afghan villagers to falsely claim civilian casualties, information warfare that does serious damage to the reputations of the U.S., NATO and the Western-backed Afghan government.

In Azizabad and other small villages where civilians are reported killed in combat, the Afghan government and international militaries pay about $2,000 for each person killed, giving villagers incentive to file false claims. U.S. officials acknowledge that payments have been made for people who never existed.

A senior Afghan official close to the Azizabad case said Tuesday he was sure 90 civilians had not perished in the fighting, but he said the Afghan government had already paid claims to villagers. He spoke on condition he was not identified contradicting the official government report.

The official noted that President Hamid Karzai — whose government was quick to publicize the civilian casualties report — is running for president next year, and has reason to be seen standing up to international powers while taking the side of Afghan villagers.

No conclusive evidence has surfaced in the Azizabad case to confirm the death toll.

The U.N. and Afghan reports relied primarily on the word of villagers.

Nek Mohammad Ishaq, a provincial council member in Herat and a member of the Afghan commission, has said photographs and video taken of the victims are with Afghanistan’s secretive intelligence service, but no such images have emerged. The U.S. did not make public any video feeds from military aircraft or the forces on the ground.

A member of Afghanistan’s investigating commission, Mohammad Iqbal Safi, a member of parliament, said the U.S. report would not change the finding of the Afghans. He said many Afghan households have weapons, but that doesn’t make them militants.

“Again I want to emphasize that all the victims were civilians, and there were no Taliban among the dead,” Safi said. “All the men killed in the operation were the employees of the private security company working at the coalition base. So how could they be Taliban?”