'Hidden US Afghan war details' revealed by Wikileaks

[AnGaaR]

More than 90,000 secret US military records have been leaked to the media, revealing hidden details of the war in Afghanistan, newspapers report.
The documents are said to include unreported killings of Afghan civilians as well as covert operations by US special forces against Taliban leaders.
UK daily The Guardian and the New York Times say the records were shown to them and to German weekly Der Spiegel by online whistle-blower Wikileaks.
The US has condemned the leaks.
The White House says the records refer to a period before the current US strategy came into effect


In a statement, National Security Adviser Gen James Jones said such classified information "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security".
He said the documents covered the period from 2004 to 2009, before President Obama "announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan".
The Guardian described the cache of classified papers as one of the biggest leaks in US military history.
The documents also reveal Nato concerns that neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, the reports say.
'Civilian deaths'
A US official, in further comments to reporters, said that Wikileaks was not an objective news outlet and described it as an organisation that opposes US policy in Afghanistan.
The reports come as Nato says it is investigating reports that as many as 45 civilians died in an air strike in Helmand province on Friday.
Although an initial Nato investigation found no evidence, a BBC journalist visiting Regey village spoke to several people who said they had witnessed the incident.
They said the attack had come in daylight as dozens sheltered from fighting in nearby Joshani.
A Nato spokesman said international forces went to great measures to avoid civilian casualties.
"The safety of the Afghan people is very important to the International Security Assistance Forces," Lt Col Chris Hughes added.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10757344

[eusuphxai]

And still some of my friends call them peace keeping force!

[Levanaye Zalmaye]

Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation

• Hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops
• Covert unit hunts leaders for 'kill or capture'
• Steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on Nato

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents.

Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers.

At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by UK troops also figure. The US compilers detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in Kabul in the space of barely a month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the death of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote: "Investigation controlled by the British. We are not able to get [sic] complete story."

A second cluster of similar shootings, all involving Royal Marine commandos in Helmand province, took place in a six-month period at the end of 2008, according to the log entries. Asked by the Guardian about these allegations, the Ministry of Defence said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians." The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers.

Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them. Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks was not involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.

Source: Guardian

[erlangner]

The strange and new thing is that USA knows well about ISI and Taliban relation but does not do anything.

Shocking.

However, one should expect from a stranger anything.

[Levanaye Zalmaye]

erlangner, I may be able to explain the situation.

The United States does not want to internally interfere with Pakistan's only stable institution. 'Stable' here is relative, of course. With Iraq already on a silver platter on the Ayatollah's Iftaar table, with North Korea not playing nice and sinking a ship of the Hello Kitty navy and with Afghanistan going downhill, the last thing any American administration wants is a nuclear Pakistan in crisis. In such a situation, pessimists believe that the Islamic bombs can be lodged onto any Afghan-named Chinese-built Pakistani missile or they could fall into the wrong hands (which is funny because they already are in the wrong hands unless of course, all wrong hands are wrong but some wrong hands are more wrong than others).

Yeah so in short, they don't want to destabilize Pakistan otherwise the failing Afghan war would expand into a country of 180 million people who are ready and waiting under the leadership of Zaid Hamid. As it is, the ISI and Iran are only providing logistical support (cash, small arms, ammo, explosives) to the militants. Perhaps the people in the US responsible for thinking have realized that if they can't even identify their enemies and if they can't stop the Taliban in southern Afghanistan from hitting, running and then virtually disappearing by dispersing among the civilian population (which they've stopped bombing since the sacking of David McKiernan), there's no point in fully escalating the war into neighboring Pakistan because that won't solve anything.

[Master Khan]

lol we knew about this long time ago.

[Army of Pakistan]

The strange and new thing is that USA knows well about ISI and Taliban relation but does not do anything.

Shocking.

However, one should expect from a stranger anything.

Lets have a look at the revelant facts.

Of the 92000 Documents released, 180 mention ISI and in it only 30 mention ISI disparagingly.

"[F]or all their eye-popping details," writes the Guardian's Declan Walsh, "the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity."

The logs of war: Do the Wikileaks documents really tell us anything new? | FP Passport

Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.

NYT: Pakistan spy service aids insurgents, reports say - World news - The New York Times - msnbc.com

The classified documents are largely what's called "raw intelligence" — reports from junior officers in the field that analysts use to advise policymakers, rather than any high-level government documents that state U.S. government policy.

U.S.: Afghan war leaks put lives 'at risk' - World news - South and Central Asia - Afghanistan - msnbc.com

[Army of Pakistan]

Wikileaks Afghanistan: Iran accused of supporting Taliban attacks

Iran is waging a secret campaign to arm, train and fund the Taliban-led insurgency against Nato forces in Afghanistan, according to American military reports

By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor
Published: 8:30AM BST 27 Jul 2010

The former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Photo: AFP/GETTY

A series of military intelligence logs, mainly from 2005 and 2006, report that Tehran offered insurgency commanders financial bounties for each soldier killed in Afghanistan. Iranian intelligence officials are also accused of supplying cash and vehicles for car bombs.


The claims are based on reports from local Afghan intelligence agents and highlight the background to American claims that Iran is waging a covert proxy war against Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The reports, disclosed by Wikileaks, include claims that in 2005, Iran offered a group of eight Taliban leaders more than $1,700 in bounty for each Afghan soldier killed and around $3,500 for each Afghan government official. Each of the Iran-based leaders were crossing into Afghanistan to raise recruits and prepare to attack coalition forces in Helmand and Oruzgan provinces.

Another report in January 2005 claimed two Iranian intelligence agents had brought more than $200,000 to Afghanistan and handed it over to aides of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former Afghan prime minister who now heads one of the most deadly factions in the insurgency.

"The money was transferred to a 1990s model white Toyota Corolla station wagon. The money was hidden with various food stuffs. The Corolla was occupied by four members of the Hezb-E-Islami, Gulbuddin (HIG) terrorist organisation. The money was transported to an unknown location," the log claims.

In March the following year, two more Iranian intelligence agents crossed the border to help Hekmatyar's faction plot further attacks.

According to the report, 'Abdul Jalil', described as having a black beard and brown eyes and 'Ahmaddin', who had long hair and brown eyes, arrived in Afghanistan to help the Taliban and Hekmatyar's group "in carrying out terrorist attacks against the AFG governmental authorities and the CF [Coalition Forces] members." Later in 2006, another report claimed Hekmatyar's group had bought 200 cars from Iran and Pakistan to transform into car bombs.

Although Hekmatyar had lived in Iran after the Taliban came to power in 1996, he was expelled by Iran in February 2002 after he called for resistance to coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Although most of the reports date back to 2005 and 2006, one report from 2009 claimed a Taliban-led force of Afghan and foreign fighters had crossed into Afghanistan from Iran.

Iran has consistently denied any support for the Taliban-led insurgency. Tehran has traditionally supported Afghanistan's minority Shi'ite Hazara population whose members were persecuted under Taliban rule.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...n-attacks.html

[Army of Pakistan]

Suspected Iran Ties to Extremists

27 Jul 2010 16:59

Cooperation among Iran, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups is more extensive than previously known to the public, according to details buried in the tens of thousands of military intelligence documents released by an independent group Sunday.

U.S. officials and Middle East analysts said some of the most explosive information contained in the WikiLeaks documents detail Iran's alleged ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, and the facilitating role Tehran may have played in providing arms from sources as varied as North Korea and Algeria.

The officials have for years received reports of Iran smuggling arms to the Taliban. The WikiLeaks documents, however, appear to give new evidence of direct contacts between Iranian officials and the Taliban's and al Qaeda's senior leadership. It also outlines Iran's alleged role in brokering arms deals between North Korea and Pakistan-based militants, particularly militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and al Qaeda.

FRONTLINE: Tehran Bureau: Suspected Iran Ties to Extremists | PBS

[Master Khan]

The ISI are training these groups to attack India, I don't think ISI has anything to do with Afghanistan.
Iran and Russia might be behind these attacks in Afghan.