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**khushal** · 05-13-2013, 05:19 PM

NATO is responsible since they are the ones creating these militias who work outside the law. They are basically independent gangs and thugs who neither represent the Afghan government nor officially NATO but created by NATO outside of Afghan government control. Its more like the rendition program on the local level by hiring others to torture to escape legal consequences.
Is the US maintaining death squads and torture militias in Afghanistan? | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

And this is nothing new, these things have been happening for a long time:

nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/world/asia/afghan-villagers-protest-vengeful-militias.html

So this is how they are waging the war for hearts and minds.

**khushal** · 05-21-2013, 07:27 PM

Body of Footless Torture Victim Unearthed Near US Special Forces Base in Afghanistan | Common Dreams
Body of Footless Torture Victim Unearthed Near US Special Forces Base in Afghanistan

Latest development deepens mystery surrounding activities in Wardak Province

- Jon Queally, staff writer

Laborers digging a water ditch just 200 yards from a former US Special Forces outpost in Afghanistan have discovered the body of a missing Afghan man, Sayid Mohammad, who was last seen being taken to the base after being taken into custody by men associated with the US military.
Afghan demonstrators marched to the Afghan parliament building in March to protest the continued presence of U.S. commandos in Afghanistan's troubled Wardak province. Though US Special Forces were compelled to leave, the mystery of what exactly occurred in Wardak continues. (Photo: Anja Niedringhaus/AP) According to the New York Times, Afghan officials say both of Mohammad's feet had been cut off and that he was buried inside a "military-style black body bag."
The discovery of the mutilated body is just the latest development in a bizarre but pivotal series of events that have pitted the authority of Afghan President Hamid Karzai against the occupying military power of the US military and NATO.
Protests erupted earlier this year following claims that US-backed "death squads" were operating in Wardak Province. In response, Karzai ordered all US soldiers to leave the district, but the mysterious activities and disappearances of Afghan citizens sparked questions surfaced about the level of US involvement.
As the Times reports:

Afghan investigators said that after his disappearance, [Mohammad] was seen in a video being tortured by an Afghan-American named Zakaria Kandahari, whom the officials identified as the chief interpreter for an American Army Special Forces A Team stationed at the base. The American military denies that Mr. Kandahari is an American citizen and said he was no longer working for the A Team when the video was made.
Relatives of Mr. Mohammad said his corpse was largely complete, except both feet had been cut off. Afghan officials say the partial remains and clothing of another missing person had been found earlier near the base, which is now occupied by Afghan Special Forces after the American unit left in March.
Afghan officials are seeking Mr. Kandahari’s arrest on murder, torture and abuse of prisoner charges, and accuse the American military of shielding him from capture.

Though US officials deny knowing where Kandahari is, what he may have done, or taking any responsibility for the activities seen in the torture video, the Afghan government's chief investigtor told the Times the connection is obvious.
“There is no question that Zakaria directly tortured and murdered,” he said. "But who is Zakaria? Who recruited him, gave him his salary, his weapons? Who kept him under their protection? He worked for Special Forces. That a member of their team was committing such crimes and they didn’t know it is just not credible.”

**khushal** · 05-21-2013, 07:31 PM

Torture Victim’s Body Is Found Near U.S. Base, Afghans Say

By ROD NORDLAND

Published: May 21, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan — The footless corpse of an Afghan man missing since November was found on Tuesday near the former American Special Forces base to which he was last seen being taken, according to Afghan officials and victims’ representatives.

Related

Afghan investigators said that after his disappearance, the man, Sayid Mohammad, was seen in a video being tortured by an Afghan-American named Zakaria Kandahari, whom the officials identified as the chief interpreter for an American Army Special Forces A Team stationed at the base. The American military denies that Mr. Kandahari is an American citizen and said he was no longer working for the A Team when the video was made.

Mr. Mohammad’s body was found about 200 yards outside the perimeter of the base, in Nerkh District in Wardak Province. Mohammad Hanif Hanafi, the district governor, said it was found by laborers digging a water ditch when they unearthed what appeared to be a military-style black body bag.
Relatives of Mr. Mohammad said his corpse was largely complete, except both feet had been cut off. Afghan officials say the partial remains and clothing of another missing person had been found earlier near the base, which is now occupied by Afghan Special Forces after the American unit left in March.

Afghan officials are seeking Mr. Kandahari’s arrest on murder, torture and abuse of prisoner charges, and accuse the American military of shielding him from capture.
American military officials have insisted they do not have Mr. Kandahari and do not know where he is; they also say that repeated military investigations into the disappearances and murders of at least 15 people from Wardak Province have shown no wrongdoing by American soldiers. The results of those investigations, however, have not been made public.
The senior Afghan investigator for Defense Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that investigators had now raised the toll of missing and dead to 17 people, all of whom were said to have been seized by the A Team in Nerkh. He provided names for all 17, and none has since been seen alive: adding in the latest body to be discovered, eight are still missing and nine have been found dead.

Although there has been no testimony directly tying
American soldiers to the abuse or killing of those detainees, the investigator questioned whom Mr. Kandahari answered to. “There is no question that Zakaria directly tortured and murdered,” he said. “But who is Zakaria? Who recruited him, gave him his salary, his weapons? Who kept him under their protection? He worked for Special Forces. That a member of their team was committing such crimes and they didn’t know it is just not credible.”

The Afghan investigator, however, disputed earlier Afghan official accounts that suggested an American voice could be heard in the videotaped session of Mr. Mohammad’s torture, and he said the torture session took place in Afghan government offices in Nerkh district, not on the base itself. The videotape has not been released publicly.
On that video, officials who have seen it said, a furious Mr. Kandahari in military uniform can be seen repeatedly kicking a seated and handcuffed Mr. Mohammad, sometimes knocking him over.

The American military has described Mr. Kandahari as a freelance interpreter who had volunteered to help the American Special Forces, who allowed him to live at their base in exchange.
Afghan officials, however, described Mr. Kandahari as having a leadership role and conducting operations on his own initiative, including detaining suspects and taking them into the Special Forces base last November and December, when the disappearances occurred.

After a series of Afghan government investigations, officials demanded that American authorities turn over Mr. Kandahari. But American officials told the Afghans that he had escaped, which infuriated Mr. Karzai, and he then demanded that all American Special Operations forces leave Wardak, a troubled province as little as an hour’s drive from the capital. A compromise was struck in which only the team in Nerkh was removed.

The senior Afghan investigator rejected the American suggestions that Mr. Kandahari could have escaped without official help. “He is not someone who can leave the camp at midnight,” the official said. “He was such a criminal that he could not stay one hour outside the base by himself.”
Mr. Mohammad, a farmer from Karim Dad village, was 23 when he was arrested on Nov. 21 by A Team members on quad bikes, the investigator said. He is survived by a wife, a daughter and two sons, according to his father, Sher Mohammad.

Col. Thomas W. Collins, a spokesman for the American military who was asked about the case, said: “All I can say is that we had absolutely nothing to do with that man’s death.”

**Admin Khan** · 05-21-2013, 08:10 PM

Kandaharis sure can be some of the cruelest rascals the world has ever seen, if need be. As days pass, I am afraid that a day will arise where I feel embarrassed to tell someone that I too have roots in Kandahar.

**Wowra** · 05-22-2013, 10:43 AM

Originally posted by BarakzaiAbdali View Post

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/wo...ref=world&_r=0

POINT 1:
So remember how I said that no amount of supposed strategic balancing warrants, no matter WHAT the excuses regarding local nations, pawning off immunity the way Karzai and his emigre technocrats plan to?

Point definitively proven. And what the fact that border security remains problematic on all borders - there is currently no need for that greem caped donkey in Kabul to pawn off autonomy and immunity:
http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-sa...162527006.html

POINT 2:
I assume this Zak Kandahari was raised with the same drivel regarding how Pakistan is the root cause of all failure and how every single insurgent is secretly a Paki Panjabi and carries the augmented DNA of Hamid Gul. Every failed project is because of Imran Khan and the ISI etc etc etc.

See what happens when people make ahistorical and irresponsible and incomplete assessments without detailing the full history? It results in innocent villager deaths because Western born technocrats and farsizubaan people dont understand rural and tribal Pashtun culture in any way.

This is NOT one that our people can pin on the NATO and ISAF forces. In my opinion they are completely NOT responsible in this case. This failure is an Afghan failure as this young man was raised in an Afghan household and spoke fluent Kandahari Pashto and ought to know the mores and behaviors of his own people. Some discontented Pashtuns in Wardag did not automatically make them insurgents, family members of insurgents, or Pakistanis. And Karzai worsened that failure when his Wardag edict was made a joke out of.

**Caveat to all of this is that the video needs to be released to the public and the facts need to be confirmed first.**

Mr. Abdali,
I'm familiar enough with the personalities and dynamics going on in that story to know that there is so much more to it. I don't think there's any place in Afghanistan with such a confusing and unique relation as there is in Nerkh. But, I will say this - that's the worst SF team I've ever seen. I mean just absolutely blunderous. But as for the portrait painted by the NY Times article - its missing so much that it cannot possibly resemble the ground truth.

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NY Times - Zak Kandahari and Wardag

NY Times - Zak Kandahari and Wardag

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