Kandahar killing spree

What really happened in Panjwai? Some reports say that 17 civilians were killed in three villages of the southern province of Kandahar, including nine children and three women.

According to the US version, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales committed the crimes in the early morning hours of March 18. The 38-year-old is currently in detention in the US and is expected to be charged with 17 counts of murder in a US court on Friday.

However, certain members of the Afghan parliament maintain that more than one individual was involved.

"All the villagers with whom we have spoken said that there were 15 to 20 men there," says Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai, a Kandahar lawmaker who is part of a parliamentary commission set up to investigate the incident.

"Right now the investigation is ongoing. Everything still points at one shooter. But we take all the claims seriously and we've asked everyone if they have claims to let us know and we'll investigate," said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan.

Villagers in the surrounding area told the news agency Associated Press (AP) that they had been forced to stand in front of a wall and told they and their children would "pay" for a recent bombing.

A rise in civilian casualties

For Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director, no source is reliable in war-torn Afghanistan. "We have had some Afghan government investigations that produced inflated figures and we have had numerous investigations by NATO and ISAF - especially the Americans - that produced very low figures."

According to UN statistics, the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has risen continuously over the past five years. Last year, some 3,000 civilians died - twice as many as in 2007. But of all the civilian deaths, insurgents are thought to be responsible for over 77 percent of them.

The Panjwai massacre is not the first case of NATO soldiers randomly killing civilians in Afghanistan, however. Last November, the head of what became known as the "Kill Team" - a group of soldiers that went on an extended rampage, killing and mutilating unarmed civilians with grenades and other weapons - was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. It is said that he could get off on good conduct within eight years.

John Tirman, the author of "The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars," told Deutsche Welle that "this was not the way most civilians are killed."

"Many more people die during so-called routine operations, such as raids, road blocks or air attacks."

In recent years, ISAF and the Afghan army have made a deliberate effort to reduce civilian casualties, with numbers falling from 838 in 2008 to 207 in 2011.

Human life against military advantage

It is not always that easy to draw the line between atrocities and routine operations.

International humanitarian law understands that it is not always possible to avoid civilian casualties when engaged in military operations but it requires parties to a conflict to take precautions in any attack to minimize civilian deaths and injuries.

"It is not forbidden to endanger or kill civilians when military targets are attacked," says Silja Vöneky from Freiburg University. However, "an attack is forbidden if it causes collateral damage to civilians that is excessive by comparison with the military advantage."

She points out that it is a very sensitive issue because it weighs human life against a military advantage. She says that more civilians might be allowed to die if a significant Taliban leader can be killed in an attack than in another scenario.

Kunduz air strike

The difficulty of making this calculation was illustrated in September 2009 when a German commander ordered an air strike on two fuel tankers which had been hijacked by the Taliban, fearing they would use them as rolling bombs. However, the tankers had been surrounded by villagers at a river crossing who were hoping to get some fuel when US jets bombed them, killing up to 142. The figures are disputed. The incident led to the resignation of a minister, a deputy defense minister and the chief of staff for the Bundeswehr. The trial against the commander is ongoing.

Silja Vöneky says the fuel tankers were an acceptable military target according to international humanitarian law. The question is whether the commander could have known the number of civilian casualties would exceed the military advantage. "What matters is the ex-ante prognosis - the calculation before an attack," she explains.

"Ex-post is a very different matter but we have to assume that he assumed there were far fewer civilians on the ground."

Peter Derleder, a legal expert at Bremen University, does not necessarily think the commander caused deliberate injury but says there was "gross neglect."

He has sued the German state on the behalf of two families for 100,000 euros. The outcome is not expected to be known for years.

Not enough accountability

By comparison, this case was comparatively well investigated, but overall Amnesty International accuses all parties involved in military operations in Afghanistan of not acting upon the killing of civilians.

"Neither the Afghan judiciary, nor the governments contributing to ISAF demonstrated the ability or willingness to provide proper accountability or compensation for victims of violations by pro-government forces," it stated in its 2011 report about Afghanistan.

Sam Zarifi says that although it is hard to hush killings of civilians because of the fact that the media is usually around where NATO is, and also because "frankly there is a Taliban interest in such attacks and getting the information out," such cases are often not adequately investigated.

He hopes the parliamentary commission will shed more light on the killing spree in Panjwai. "We're very anxious to see what interviews were conducted and how they were conducted because there are very strong questions remaining about what exactly happened in Kandahar and whether there was just one person involved."

Author: Dennis Stute / act
Editor: Sarah Berning