"Body found near base ID’d as Afghan torture victim; Disappearance of slaying suspect spurs rift with US" by Rod Nordland | New York Times, May 22, 2013
KABUL — The footless body of an Afghan man missing since November was found Tuesday near the former US Special Forces base to which he was last seen being taken, according to Afghan officials and victims’ representatives.
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 a US Army Special Forces A Team stationed at the base. The US military denies that Kandahari is a US citizen and said he was no longer working for the A Team when the video was made.
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 Mohammad said his body 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 US unit left in March.
Afghan officials are seeking Kandahari’s arrest on murder, torture, and abuse of prisoner charges, and accuse the US military of shielding him from capture.
He sure as hell looks like one of "ours" despite the U.S. denials.
US military officials have insisted they do not have 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 US soldiers. The results of those investigations 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.
Execution squads are fine as long as they are "our" guys.
Although there has been no testimony directly tying US soldiers to the abuse or killing of those detainees, the investigator questioned whom 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 Mohammad’s torture, and he said the torture session took place in Afghan government offices in Nerkh district, not on the base itself.
On that video, officials who have seen it said, a furious Kandahari in military uniform can be seen kicking a seated and handcuffed Mohammad, sometimes knocking him over.
The US military has described Kandahari as a freelance interpreter who had volunteered to help the US Special Forces, who allowed him to live at their base in exchange.
Afghan officials, however, described 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 US authorities turn over Kandahari. But US officials told the Afghans that he had escaped, which infuriated Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, and he then demanded that all US Special Operations forces leave Wardak. A compromise was struck in which only the team in Nerkh was removed.
Related: Karzai eases demand that US forces leave province
"Karzai had angrily insisted that US forces leave Nirkh over the alleged torture, kidnapping, and summary execution of militant suspects there — charges US officials firmly denied. US special operations forces will continue to visit the Afghan team in Nirkh, and work throughout the rest of the province, said Major General Tony Thomas, the top US special operations commander in Afghanistan. “American special operations forces are integral in the defense of Wardak from now until the foreseeable future,” Thomas said in an interview Saturday at Camp Integrity, the special operations compound on the outskirts of Kabul.... In a separate complaint, Karzai said that on Saturday night an Afghan engineering student in the southern city of Kandahar had been badly abused at a US-run prison after being detained by Afghan forces backed by the CIA."
Also see: US warns Afghan leader’s comments threaten troops
"Karzai acknowledged at a news conference that regular payments his government has received from the CIA for more than a decade would continue."
Your tax dollars, austerity-strapped Americans.
I'm not going to cover all the Karzai bric-a-crap, but it's plain obvious that the U.S. assisted their asset in getting away.
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"Accused torturer of Afghans arrested" New York Times, July 08, 2013
KABUL — Afghan officials confirmed Sunday that they had arrested and were questioning Zakaria Kandahari, whom they have described as an Afghan-American interpreter responsible for torturing and killing civilians while working for a US Special Forces unit.
The arrest of Kandahari, who was sought on charges of murder, torture, and abuse of prisoners, was confirmed by Major General Manan Farahi, the head of intelligence for the Afghan Defense Ministry. He said Kandahari, who escaped from an American base in January after President Hamid Karzai demanded his arrest, was captured in Kandahar by the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service. There had been speculation for the last three weeks that Kandahari was in custody.
Afghan officials had accused the US military of deliberately allowing Kandahari to escape, a claim that US officials rejected.
Kandahari is wanted in connection with the disappearances and deaths of many of 17 Afghan civilians who were detained by a US Special Forces A Team for which he worked.
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Related: Afghans Despise AmeriKan Detention Dungeons
Can you blame them?
"UN finds torture still rampant in Afghan prisons as government tries to hide or ignore abuse" by Heidi Vogt, The Associated Press January 20, 2013
Someone else trying to hide it, too!
KABUL - Afghan authorities are still torturing prisoners, such as hanging them by their wrists and beating them with cables, the United Nations said, a year after it first documented the abuse and won government promises of detention reform.
The latest report shows little progress in curbing abuse in Afghan prisons despite efforts by the U.N. and international military forces in Afghanistan. The report released Sunday also cites instances where Afghan authorities have tried to hide mistreatment from U.N. monitors.
The slow progress on prison reform has prompted NATO forces to once again stop many transfers of detainees to Afghan authorities out of concern that they would be tortured.
How ironic is that?
How ironic is that?
In multiple detention centres, Afghan authorities leave detainees hanging from the ceiling by their wrists, beat them with cables and wooden sticks, administer electric shocks, twist their genitals and threaten to shove bottles up their anuses or to kill them, the report said.
The level of cruelty meted out on the basis of damnable lies is mind-boggling and beyond me.
The level of cruelty meted out on the basis of damnable lies is mind-boggling and beyond me.
In a letter responding to the latest report, the Afghan government said that its internal monitoring committee found that "the allegations of torture of detainees were untrue and thus disproved." The Afghan government said that it would not completely rule out the possibility of torture at its detention facilities, but that it was nowhere near the levels described in the report and that it was checking on reports of abuse.
Yeah, maybe. I no longer believe in the Jewnited Nations and it's agenda-pushing. If a report is put out it is to pressure and prod.
Yeah, maybe. I no longer believe in the Jewnited Nations and it's agenda-pushing. If a report is put out it is to pressure and prod.
The findings, however, highlight the type of human rights abuses that many activists worry could become more prevalent in Afghanistan as international forces draw down.
That's where my print paper ends, meaning what, we should stay?
"Jack Idema; ex-soldier ran notorious private Afghan jail" Associated Press, January 26, 2012
RALEIGH, N.C. - Jonathan “Jack’’ Idema, a former Green Beret from North Carolina convicted of running a jail in Afghanistan where he tortured terrorism suspects, has died at 55.
Mr. Idema died of AIDS Saturday. No one claimed his body from the medical examiner’s office in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
WOW!
WOW!
Mr. Idema had moved to Mexico after he was released from prison in Afghanistan in 2007, when he was pardoned by President Hamid Karzai.
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Idema traveled to Afghanistan, asserting that he was close to catching Osama bin Laden.
In 2004, he returned with another former Fayetteville soldier and a videographer. They ran a private jail in which terrorism suspects were tortured for information. Although convicted, Mr. Idema denied wrongdoing.
He said that his operation was conceived with the knowledge and support of US and Afghan military authorities, which they denied, saying any connection was entirely in his imagination.
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"Afghanistan admits to detainee torture; Panel says abuse not systemic; US starts pullout" by Rahim Faiez | Associated Press, February 12, 2013
KABUL — An Afghan government panel acknowledged Monday that detainees face widespread torture but denied there is systematic abuse in government-run prisons.
The panel’s findings were the result of a two-week fact-finding mission following a UN report last month that said Afghan authorities are still torturing prisoners despite promises of reforms. The country’s intelligence service earlier had denied any torture in its detention facilities.
The complaints have prompted NATO to stop many transfers of detainees to the Afghans.
The UN report cited brutal tactics including hanging detainees from the ceiling by their wrists, beating them with cables, and administering electric shocks.
And other even more horrible things.
The Afghan panel denied the allegation in the UN report that the government appeared to be trying to hide the mistreatment by moving detainees to secret locations during inspections by international observers.
Many rights activists have expressed concern that such abuses could become more common as international forces draw down and the country’s Western allies exert less oversight on a government that has taken few concrete actions to reform the system.
Oh, no, Obama is going to get private contractors to do that job in$tead.
The United States began its withdrawal from Afghanistan in earnest over the weekend, sending the first of what will be tens of thousands of containers home through Pakistan.
The shipment of 50 containers came as a new US commander took control of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan to guide the coalition through the end stages of a war that has lasted more than 11 years....
I'm told this is what winning looks like (our mission, Globe?).
Abdul Qadir Adalatkhwa, head of the Afghan commission investigating the abuse, told reporters that torture and beatings occur in the first stages of the arrest ‘‘but not while they are in prison.’’
The delegation visited male and female prisons and juvenile detention facilities....
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