South Asia News

Secrets of Afghan war revealed by WikiLeaks (Roundup)

Jul 26, 2010, 2:35 GMT

Italian soldiers of NATO\'s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are reflected in a side mirror of a vehicle as they patrol in Herat, western Afghanistan, 14 February 2010. EPA/JALIL REZAYEE

Washington - A voluminous record of 92,000 secret documents detailing six years of the Afghanistan war was published Sunday providing damning details of unreported cases of Afghan civilian deaths; a special force that hunts down Taliban leaders, to kill or capture, without trial; and a growing insurgency abetted by Pakistan.

The secret US military records about the war in Afghanistan were leaked to the media by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks, and published by the New York Times, British daily the Guardian and German weekly Der Spiegel.

The United States strongly condemned the disclosure of classified information, National Security Advisor General James Jones said Sunday, as the action could put lives at risk and threaten national security.

The documents span parts of two US administrations and 'illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost 300 billion dollars on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001,' the Times reported.

Jones said WikiLeaks made 'no effort' to contact the government about the documents, which cover the period from January 2004 to December 2009, before US President Barack Obama announced a 'new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan.'

Obama's two-track strategy involves intensifying military operations against resurgent Taliban militants, while simultaneously building the civilian side to improve the effectiveness of the Afghan government.

While the US gets ready to wind down its role in Iraq, it will shift military focus to Afghanistan, where the number of US troops is expected to exceed 100,000 by the end of summer, despite an increasingly sceptical American public.

WikiLeaks said on its website that the documents, called the Afghan War Diary, were written by soldiers and intelligence officers 'mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military.' It said the reports do not cover top-secret operations or those by European and other ISAF forces.

The Times said the information was 'a daily diary of an American- led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.'

The Times admitted that the documents were 'an incomplete record of the war ... The documents also do not cover events in 2010, when the influx of more troops into Afghanistan began and a new counterinsurgency strategy took hold.'

But it said they provide a 'disheartening picture' of the Afghan police and soldiers, on whom the Pentagon is spending billions of dollars for training.

'The reports recount episodes of police brutality, corruption petty and large, extortion and kidnapping. Some police officers defect to the Taliban. Others are accused of collaborating with insurgents, arms smugglers and highway bandits,' the Times said.

It said that US ally Pakistan, which receives more than 1 billion dollars a year from Washington, would allow its spy service to collaborate with the Taliban and meet them in secret 'to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan.'

The Guardian focused on commando units like Task Force 373 - a classified group of Army and Navy operatives - that hunt down Taliban leaders for 'kill or capture,' without trial. It said the United States hid evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to- air missiles, and described the escalation of roadside bombings by the Taliban that have killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

The Times described how Afghan civilians were killed and the deaths covered up - 'not just in airstrikes but in ones and twos ... The dead, the reports repeatedly indicate, were not suicide bombers or insurgents, and many of the cases were not reported to the public at the time.'

When Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited the White House in May, Obama addressed the problem posed by unintended civilian casualties from US and NATO operations, an issue that has been a key source of tensions with Kabul.

'We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties not because it's a problem for President Karzai. We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don't want civilians killed. And we are going to do everything we can to prevent that,' Obama said then.

Der Spiegel reported on the precarious and deteriorating security situation in the north, where German soldiers are deployed.

The Central Intelligence Agency has expanded its role in Afghanistan, with paramilitary units launching ambushes and ordering airstrikes, the Times reported. 'From 2001 to 2008, the CIA paid the budget of Afghanistan's spy agency and ran it as a virtual subsidiary.'

Jones said the 'irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.'

He admitted that 'serious challenges lie ahead, but if Afghanistan is permitted to slide backwards, we will again face a threat from violent extremist groups like al-Qaeda who will have more space to plot and train.'