Night raid on Narang

Last updated

Night raid on Narang
Narang night raid.jpg
People of Narang district mourning for the students killed in the raid
DateDecember 27, 2009
Location
Ghazi Khan Ghondi village, Narang District, Kunar province, Afghanistan
Result Death of 10 local civilians.

The night raid onNarang was a night raid on a household in the village of Ghazi Khan in the early morning hours of December 27, 2009. The operation was authorized by NATO and resulted in the death of ten Afghan civilians, most of whom were students, and some of whom were children. [1] [2] [3] The status of the deceased was initially in dispute with NATO officials claiming the dead were Taliban members found with weapons and bomb making materials, while some Afghan government officials and local tribal authorities asserted they were civilians. [4]

Contents

According to an Afghan initial investigation led by Mr. Assadullah Wafa, the raiding party took off by helicopter from Kabul. The raiding party allegedly dragged the victims out of their beds and shot them in the head or chest. A survivor was subsequently interrogated and pictures were taken of the dead bodies. Investigations later determined that most of the victims were aged between 12 and 18 years and were enrolled in local schools. [3] [5] [6]

The Afghan government claimed U.S. Forces were involved, while statements by NATO asserted U.S. and NATO forces did not participate in the shootings. [7] Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy said Afghan troops had not taken part in the operation. [8] Who exactly carried out the raid and shot the victims remains unclear. [3] In 2015 it became known that as part of the US covert Omega Program SEAL Team Six members in conjunction with C.I.A. paramilitary officers and Afghan troops trained by the C.I.A. carried out the assault. [9]

Summary of events

According to an Afghan investigation at around 1 am American troops with helicopters left Kabul and landed around 2 km away. They walked from the helicopters to the houses where they gathered the students from two rooms, into one room, and opened fire. Colonel Gross said that U.S. forces were present but did not lead the operation. [1] A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and five were handcuffed before they were shot. "I saw their school books covered in blood," he said. [10] [11]

Investigation

President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the military operation and tasked a delegation led by Assadullah Wafa to investigate the killings. [8] The investigation found that all of the victims were civilians and that eight of them were students between the ages of 12 and 17. [5] A preliminary investigation by the United Nations reinforced Afghan claims that most of the dead were schoolboys. [6] Assadullah Wafa who led the investigation, said: "It’s impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent." [11] While a joint Afghan-NATO investigation is ongoing Hamid Karzai offered 100,000 afghanis to the victim's families. Amid calls for prosecution of the attackers by the Afghan Security Council Karzai conceded that he didn't know who the shooters were. Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy said Afghan troops had not taken part in the operation. [8] NATO reiterated that the forces which conducted the attack were not under NATO command and were of a "non-military" nature. [3] NATO did, though, concede it authorized the operation and apologized for doing so, admitting the dead were likely civilians "gunned down by mistake". [3]

Reactions

Afghanistan

Hundreds of Afghans rallied in the streets of Jalalabad and Kabul. Hundreds were university students and some were wearing blue headbands with the words: "Stop killing us!". They burned an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama and chanted "Death to America" and "Obama! Obama! Take your soldiers out of Afghanistan!". [2] [11] [12]

Safiullah Aminzai, a student organiser, told AFP: "Our demonstration is against those foreigners who have come to our country." "They have not brought democracy to Afghanistan but they are killing our religious scholars and children." [12]

Relatives of the victims

Farooq Abul Ajan who lost two children, four nephews and two brothers in the operation complained to President Hamid Karzai that no one has taken responsibility. He said "We wanted to know who it was." The president’s spokesman, Waheed Omar, assured the relatives that the palace were “actively seeking” to bring the perpetrators to justice. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

During the War in Afghanistan, according to the Costs of War Project the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan: 46,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police and at least 52,893 opposition fighters. However, the death toll is possibly higher due to unaccounted deaths by "disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war." According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the conflict killed 212,191 people. The Cost of War project estimated in 2015 that the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may be as high as 360,000 additional people based on a ratio of indirect to direct deaths in contemporary conflicts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)</span>

The following items form a partial timeline of the War in Afghanistan. For events prior to October 7, 2001, see 2001 in Afghanistan.

The following lists events that happened during 2004 in Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 Helmand Province airstrikes</span>

The 2007 Helmand province airstrikes were a set of airstrikes conducted by NATO on 22 June 2007 which resulted in death of at least 45 Afghan civilians. The death count in southern Helmand province was the highest since 2001, when US-led forces used heavy bombing in their campaign to drive the Taliban from power.

The Azizabad airstrike was carried out by the United States Air Force on Friday 22 August 2008 in the village of Azizabad which is located in Shindand district, Herat Province, Afghanistan. The airstrike killed 92 civilians, mostly children, and a number of structures in the village including homes were damaged or destroyed, although there remains some dispute about the accuracy of these figures. A Taliban commander was the intended target of the airstrike.

The Raid onKhataba, also referred to as the raid onGardez, was an incident in the War in Afghanistan in which five civilians, including two pregnant women and a teenage girl, were killed by U.S. forces on February 12, 2010. All were shot when U.S. Army Rangers raided a house in Khataba village, outside the city of Gardez, where dozens of people had gathered earlier at the home to celebrate the naming of a newborn baby. Initially, U.S. Military officials implied the three women were killed before the raid by family members, reporting that the women had been found "tied up, gagged and killed." But investigators sent by the Afghan government reported, based on interviews and pictures of the scene, that the special operation forces removed bullets from the victims' bodies and cleaned their wounds as part of an attempted coverup. NATO denied this allegation, and Afghan investigator Merza Mohammed Yarmand stated, "We can not confirm it as we had not been able to autopsy the bodies." The US military later admitted that the special operations unit killed the three women during the raid.

Events from the year 2010 in Afghanistan.

On July 23, 2010, a NATO attack killed and injured many Afghan civilians, most of whom were women and children, in the village of Sangin in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Uruzgan helicopter attack refers to the February 21, 2010, killing of Afghan civilians, including over 20 men, four women and one child, by United States Army with another 12 civilians wounded. The attack took place near the border between Uruzgan and Daykundi province in Afghanistan when special operation troops helicopters attacked three minibuses with "airborne weapons".

The Wech Baghtu wedding party airstrike refers to the killing of about 37 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, and injuring about 27 others by a United States military airstrike on November the 3rd 2008. The group was celebrating a wedding at a housing complex in the village of Wech Baghtu, a Taliban stronghold in the Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar province, Afghanistan.

Hyderabad airstrike refers to the killing of many Afghan civilians including women and children in the village of Hyderabad, Gerishk District, Helmand province, Afghanistan on June 28, 2007 by the United States Army.

Jerome Starkey is an English journalist, broadcaster and author best known for covering wars and the environment. He challenged US forces over civilian casualties in Afghanistan and was deported from Kenya in 2017 after reporting on state-sponsored corruption and extrajudicial killings.

Events from the year 2011 in Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2012 in Afghanistan</span> List of events

Events from the year 2012 in Afghanistan.

The 2012 Kapisa airstrike refers to a NATO air raid in which seven children and one adult were killed in a village in Nijrab District of Kapisa Province, Afghanistan. The strike took place on 8 February 2012.

The following lists events that happened in 2013 in Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kunduz madrassa airstrike</span> Afghan Air Force attack on civilians in Kunduz, Afghanistan

The Kunduz madrassa airstrike was an Afghan Air Force (AAF) airstrike that killed and injured many civilians at the Akhundzada Gojor Madrassa in the Dasht-e-Archi region of Kunduz, Afghanistan on 2 April 2018. The target of airstrike was a religious gathering at a Madrassa. A graduation ceremony was taking place at the Madrassa and hundreds of people were attending the ceremony at the time of airstrike. Initially, Afghan Government claimed that airstrike had killed scores of Taliban and denied any civilian casualties took place. But later the Afghan Government admitted that civilians were killed in the airstrike. Local residents from Dasht-e-Archi deny that any Taliban were present at the Madrassa. They said that only children and civilians were targeted and there were no Taliban among the casualties.

References

  1. 1 2 Jerome Starkey (February 25, 2010). "Nato admits that deaths of 8 boys were a mistake". The Times of London.
  2. 1 2 "Afghans condemn 'civilian deaths'". Al Jazeera. December 30, 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jerome Starkey (March 8, 2010). "Karzai offers families 'blood money' for sons killed in raid". The Times of London.
  4. ↑ Alissa J. Rubin and Abdul Waheed Wafa (December 29, 2009). "Afghan Leader Says Attack Killed Civilians, but NATO Says the Victims Were Taliban". New York Times.
  5. 1 2 "Afghan Investigation: Foreign Troops Killed School Children". Voice of America. December 30, 2009.
  6. 1 2 Stephen Smith (January 1, 2010). "U.N.: Afghans Slain in Raid Were Students". CBS News.
  7. ↑ Jerome Starkey (February 26, 2010). "Hunt down the spy behind deaths of our children, say Afghan night raid survivors". The Times of London.
  8. 1 2 3 Amin Jalali (December 30, 2009). "Assault force killed family by mistake in raid, claims Afghan father". Reuters.
  9. ↑ Mazzetti, Mark; Nicholas Kulish; Christopher Drew; Serge F. Kowalski; Sean D. Naylor; John Ismay (June 6, 2015). "SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines". The New York Times. Retrieved October 4, 2015.
  10. ↑ Jerome Starkey (February 25, 2010). "Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children". The Times of London.
  11. 1 2 3 Jerome Starkey (December 31, 2009). "Assault force killed family by mistake in raid, claims Afghan father". The Times of London.
  12. 1 2 Samoon Miakhail (December 29, 2009). "Afghans burn Obama effigy over civilian deaths". AFP.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.