Convoy of Death-up to 3000 POW's killed by US/Afghan forces
Commy
Posts: 4,984
The film tells the story of thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the US military’s Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz. According to the film, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. When the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them. The rest suffered through an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds. Witnesses say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened the containers, most of the people inside were dead. They also say US Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie buried in a mass grave. Outraged human rights groups and lawyers are calling for an investigation but the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan refuses any U.N.-backed investigation until the Afghan government can protect witnesses. Two of the witnesses in the film have already been killed.
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/200 ... -of-death/
Obama recently announced he will open an investigation into the massacre, according to Democracy Now!.
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/200 ... -of-death/
Obama recently announced he will open an investigation into the massacre, according to Democracy Now!.
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so that means they should be treated like that then executed and buried in mass graves?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Watch the documentary.
US special forces were there when the prisoners were loaded, were there when they were in prison, and there when they were burried.
Or are you suggesting US special forces were taking orders from the Aghanis?
no, thats not what I'm suggesting. did US special forces shoot and kill anyone?
I can remember hearing about this documentary on Democracy now 5-6 years ago and I couldn't believe what I was hearing and now it's in the news again. Let me see if i can find the story and the past stories about this from DN.
Here it is, it was today's story....Obama Calls for Probe into 2001 Massacre of at Least 2,000 Suspected Taliban POWs by US-Backed Afghan Warlord
Peace
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.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
if US forces were present when these atrocities were committed, that's a war crime. whether they pulled the trigger or not. not according to me, but according to international law.
there are pictures of US troops at the prison, at the time the prisoners were being held there. there is eye witness testimony that US troops were present at the massacre, even searching dead bodies for id.
US special forces were all over this, from beginning to end, this documentary presents evidence of that. those guys barely take orders from superior officers, you really think the afghanis are going to be operating independently of them?
it was a US supervised mass murder of unarmed prisoners of war, and an investigation has been opened. i doubt anything will come of it, but you never know.l someone should pay for this.
i am sure nothing will come of it. even if there is undeniable proof. if we were involved in this in ANY way it is a war crime and those involved should be held accountable. i can see the response of some of the blind patriots around here that feel that our soldiers are incapable of wrongdoing now saying something like "why are you guys bringin up old shit?" if i remember correctly there is no statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity, so maybe one day those responsible will be brought to justice, american or not. at any rate, there is no excuse for the conditions under which these people were transported and how they eventually came to their end. if an example is not made here, this stuff will continue to happen.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Are you praising their innocence?
There was a documentary in England which also discussed the prison revolt by Afghan prisoners which resulted in the U.S forces calling an air-strike on the prison and massacring the prisoners. The S.A.S were also involved.
An air-strike on a prison - go figure!
I don't think so. The US special forces have no authority over Afghan forces. what do you expect the US to do in that situation? that said, IF US forces assisted in killing those prisonors, then yes, they should be charged. but they are not guilty for simply being there. and there are probably many details that you dont know simply because you werent there.
again, so what? I'm interested in knowing what you think the US forces should have done that would exonerate them of crimes in your opinion.
"all over this" ? what does that mean? that they assisted in killing people? thats a bold charge you are making.
absolutely. Afgan fighters are notorious for being very independent and answer to no one, expect maybe the warlord of the day. do you really think they took orders for the US?
again, absolutely bullshit made up by you. its a disgrace that you can simply convict US soldiers for mass murder by simply watching some random video on the net. the video shows nothing of the sort. you make me fucking sick how you will take any opportunity to piss on America military service members.
I'd glad an investigation is opened. no doubt it will show the Afgan forces killing the prisoners independent of anything. Afgans are hardened warriors who have been doing this for decades.
And you base these opinions on what exactly?
The documentary I remember watching included interviews with British S.A.S and U.S Special Forces who were present and who ordered the air-strike on the prison and the subsequent moving of the surviving prisoners in trucks across the desert. Are you suggesting that the Afghan soldiers had the authority to call an air-strike by American F16'S, or that they had the authority to order the movement of hundreds of prisoners?
this was all over the news in America as well. They were Taliban prisoners who revolted and took over the prison. a battled ensued and air strikes were called in. the air strikes actually missed their targets and the battled ended with small arms fire and hand to hand combat.
the prison was no longer a prison after the revolt. but I'm sure you know all these details and forgot to mention it. go figure!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qala-i-Jangi
Inside the fortress, the new prisoners had not been searched, and it soon became evident that they had concealed weapons among them. The day of their surrender, on November 24, two of Dostum's commanders were killed by prisoners with grenades in two separate incidents. Despite this, security at the prison was not reinforced that day.
On the 25th, two CIA officers, one from the highly secretive Special Activities Division, Johnny "Mike" Spann, a former Marine, and another Dave Tyson, an Uzbek speaker and area expert[4], arrived at Qala-i-Jangi to carry out the interrogations[5]. These officers questioned the only American captured fighting with the Taliban, John Walker Lindh. As shown on British Television (Channel 4 news), Spann asked "are you a member of the IRA?" (This question was asked because Lindh was told to claim he was Irish to "avoid problems.") At his memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery they stated that after being attacked, Spann "fought with his AK-47 until it ran out of ammunition, then drew his pistol and emptied it, before turning to hand to hand combat which saw him shot". [6] According to members of a German television crew who were later trapped in the fort with the other CIA officer named "Dave", Spann asked the prisoners who they were and why they joined the Taliban. They massed around him. "Why are you here?" Spann asked one. "To kill you," came the reply as the man lunged at Spann's neck. Mike Spann’s family visited the fortress after his death. Afghan doctors on site at the time of the riot gave the Spann family the following account. They said they "thought Mike might run and retreat, but he held his position and fought using his AK rifle until out of ammo, and then drew and began firing his pistol,” Spann’s father said. While watching Mike fight they were able to jump up and run to safety. They said the only reason that "they and several others were able to live was because Mike stood his position and fought off the prisoners while enabling them the time to run to safety". [3]
The prisoners quickly overran a large part of Qala-i-Jangi, including an armory, from which they helped themselves to a large store of AK-47s, RPG rocket launchers and mortars.
Tyson managed to escape to a secure part of the fortress where he found himself trapped with a television crew from the German ARD network. He borrowed their satellite phone, and called the US embassy in Uzbekistan, requesting reinforcements[7]. Tyson specifically requested no air support, due to the proximity of allied Afghani forces. The Afghans also brought reinforcements: a T-55 tank entered the compound and started firing into the prisoner-controlled area. Despite Tyson's requests, several 500-pound guided bombs were dropped in an attempt to destroy the armory, which was now serving as a firebase for the prisoners.
Several other television crews arrived on the scene of the battle, ensuring it got one of the widest media coverages of the whole war. The successive stages of the fighting were filmed extensively, providing rare footage of special forces units in combat.
At 2:00 pm a mixed Special forces team, formed with nine U.S. Special Forces and six British Special Boat Service operatives, arrived and joined the Afghans firing at the prisoners from the northern part of the fort. Starting at 4:00 pm until nightfall, they directed nine airstrikes against the entrenched prisoners, who continued to put up a fierce resistance.
The next day, the Alliance soldiers set up a command post near the Northern gate, to direct their tank and mortar fire. They were joined by four more Special Forces soldiers, and by eight men of the 10th Mountain Division.
At 11:00 pm, a GBU-32 guided bomb, weighing 2,000 pounds (957 kg), mistakenly hit the command post, killing four (some sources say 30[3]) Northern Alliance soldiers, destroying a tank and injuring five U.S. and two British Operators.[7] That night an AC-130 Spectre gunship circled over the fortress, firing thousands of rounds at the uprising prisoners. The main ammunition depot was hit, creating a huge explosion which continued to burn throughout the night.
By the morning of the 27th the prisoner resistance had slackened, and the Alliance soldiers were able to mount an attack, with tanks, and by the end of the day, they had recaptured most of the fort. The Americans recovered Spann's body, which the prisoners had booby trapped with a grenade.[7]
Oil was poured in the basement in which the surviving prisoners had taken shelter, and ignited. This failed to kill all survivors, and the basement was subsequently flooded with water. 86 survivors still trapped surrendered on the 1st of December[1].
On the 28th General Dostum arrived on the scene of the battle, and tried to persuade the last prisoners still holding out in the basement to surrender. His entreaties had no effect, however, and the last prisoners only gave themselves up two days later, after the Alliance troops had forced them out of the basement by pumping it full of water.
this isn't the same battle.
O.k, the movement of the prisoners in trucks may have been a separate incident/location mentioned in the documentary, but the prison revolt is the same one we're talking about.
Sheberghan death convoy
News Telegraph
Slow death on the jail convoy of misery
(Filed: 19/03/2002)
JULIUS STRAUSS in Sherberghan reports on the inhuman treatment meted out to prisoners taken by the West's Afghan allies
The prisoners were crammed at gunpoint into large, oblong freight containers. When no more could be squeezed in, the metal doors were shut tight. Slowly they began to suffocate.
By the time the containers were opened two days later - at the end of the journey from Kunduz to Sheberghan - many were dead.
"There was no oxygen," said Maqsood Khan, a 26-year-old Pakistani from Rawalpindi. "We drank the sweat off our own bodies and off the dead men. Some drank their urine. Of 400, half were dead by the time we arrived."
Last November as Northern Alliance forces swept into Kabul, they also surrounded several thousand Taliban soldiers in Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan.
After days of sporadic fighting and punishing American air strikes, the Taliban capitulated. Thousands disappeared.
This week I tracked them down to a crumbling prison in Sheberghan. The 3,055 survivors were crammed into filthy, lice-infested cells, emaciated and disease-ridden.
Several men related how during a two-day ordeal at the hands of Northern Alliance soldiers, hundreds or even thousands had died in the containers.
The treatment is fairly typical for prisoners of war in Afghanistan. The captors owed allegiance to Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, the northern warlord whose men committed similar atrocities in 1997.
But at least two of the prisoners said American special forces - deployed in the area last autumn to hunt for al-Qa'eda operatives - were present when the containers were loaded and, two days later, when the containers reached Sheberghan prison carrying their cargo of live and dead prisoners.
Until the end of last year access to Sheberghan prison was controlled by two American special forces soldiers.
Human rights advocates have championed the cause of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Others have launched investigations into the prison uprising at Qala-i-Jhangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif where hundreds more Taliban and al-Qa'eda fighters died.
But a far greater crime appears to have remained hidden from view. Stories such as these have only served to harden the resolve of Islamic militants.
An exact tally of the number of dead is unlikely ever to emerge. But eye-witness testimony suggests the number of victims is high.
The prison commandant admitted that 43 men were dead when the containers arrived but blamed the deaths on injuries sustained in battle.
The prisoners' account, however, seems to be backed up by a lorry driver from Mazar-i-Sharif who was interviewed last month by a western journalist.
Refusing to give his name for fear of retribution, he said his freight lorry was requisitioned at gunpoint by Northern Alliance soldiers. He said he had been forced to carry prisoners to Sheberghan. They begged for air and water.
The prisoners' ordeal began in late November when they surrendered to a coalition of Northern Alliance soldiers and American special forces. Most were in their teens and as well as Pakistanis, droves of Saudis, Chechens, Yemenis and even Uighurs from China had joined the jihad against America.
When Kunduz fell, the pro-Taliban forces were corralled into large groups. Afghan soldiers forced them at gunpoint to clamber into the steel containers on lorries. For up to two days the prisoners were kept in the containers. Some said the doors were opened briefly in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Some of the prisoners said they were saved when they managed to smash holes in the floors of the containers, allowing in some air.
One Pakistani said that when they hammered on the sides of the containers, Northern Alliance soldiers opened the rear doors and sprayed them with gunfire.
Sajjid Mehmood, an 18-year-old from Karachi, said: "There were about 250 men in the container I was in. We were praying, shouting and begging for mercy. It was very difficult to breathe.
"Zubair, a man who was crushed up against me, died after two or three hours. We were praying to God. When the soldiers heard our cries for help they opened the rear doors and began shooting.
"Many of us died, maybe 20 or 30. When the container arrived after 18 hours, 150 out of 250 people were dead." Today Sheberghan prison, originally built for 500 to 1,000 inmates, houses more than 3,000. The commandant said 807 of them are Pakistanis. The rest are Afghans.
Inside, the prisoners are crammed into three small cell blocks. A guard wielding a metal chain whips them to keep order. Food is limited to three tiny meals a day, mostly bread, rice and unsugared tea. Twice a week the prisoners receive meat. There are few vegetables and no fruit and many of the prisoners are emaciated.
Hygiene is poor. The men are infested with lice and fleas. Two Western doctors from Physicians for Human Rights, who visited the prison in January, said dysentery, respiratory diseases and jaundice were rife.
The leading al Qa'eda operatives who were at the prison have been taken away by American soldiers.
Most are now at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. But the ones left behind, the foot soldiers, have been forgotten. "Nearly everyone is sick here. Many urinate blood," said Haider Ali, 22, who shares a cell with 36 other inmates.
The commandant of the prison admitted that conditions were grim but he said the Afghans lacked the money to give them better care.'
I think the prison revolt where the prisoners were apparently being abused and tortured before being massacred by special forces and by air-strikes is a more serious case of U.S/British crimes.
wow, I'm speechless.
are you talking about this battle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qala-i-Jangi
if so, the US did nothing wrong here. The prison no longer became a prison once it was taken over by the Taliban. it then became a battlefield.
I'm Byrnzie, nice to meet you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qala-i-Jangi
'...Due to the high number of prisoner casualties, and the heavy weaponry used to subdue them, the Northern Alliance and the coalition were accused of breaking the Geneva Conventions, by using disproportionate means.[12] Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry,[13] but this was rejected by the U.S. and British governments, who argued that the fanatical resistance of the uprising fully justified the use of airpower and heavy weapons against them.'
I remember hearing that prisoners were suffering abuse before the battle and that the abuse is what led to the revolt. Wiki doesn't mention any of this. I'll have a look for any info it.
you really believe Taliban prisoners needed a reason to revolt? :roll:
'...two Americans went to meet the prisoners at Qala-i-Jangi. Their mission at the fortress: to identify any members of al-Qaeda among the prisoners. But the Americans didn't conduct the interviews one by one--another mistake. Instead, at 11:15 a.m., the pair--Johnny Micheal Spann, 32, one of the CIA agents who had been active in Afghanistan since the war's beginning, the other identified by colleagues only as "Dave"--were taken to an open area outside the cells and a group of prisoners brought to meet them. According to members of a German television crew who were later trapped in the fort with Dave, Spann asked the prisoners who they were and why they joined the Taliban. They massed around him. "Why are you here?" Spann asked one. "To kill you," came the reply as the man lunged at Spann's neck. Spann drew his pistol and shot the man dead. Dave shot another, then grabbed an AK-47 from an Alliance guard and opened fire. According to eyewitness accounts given to the German team, the Taliban fighters launched themselves at Spann, scrabbling at his flesh with their hands, kicking and beating him. Spann killed two more with his pistol before he disappeared under the crush. An Alabaman with a wife and three children, Spann became the first American to die in combat in Afghanistan...'
The Taliban then overpowered the Alliance guards, killing them with their own weapons. Dave mowed down three more Taliban, then sprinted to the main building along the north wall, where two Red Cross workers had just begun a meeting with the prison governor. "He burst in and told us to get out of there," says Simon Brooks, a Briton and a Red Cross staff member. "He was really shaken up. He said there were 20 dead Northern Alliance guys, and the Taliban were taking control of the fort."
http://www.qern.org/node/68
'...Two CIA agents, Johnny "Mike" Spann and "Dave", had also been instructed to screen the Taliban fighters for possible links with al-Qaida. From a distance Dave looked Afghan. He even spoke Uzbek, the language of Dostam's soldiers, and wore a shalwar kameez beneath a long coat. But his square-cropped haircut gave the game away, and revealed him as an American.
Two television crews - from Reuters and the German station ARD - had also turned up at the fort. They were in the prisoners' compound, together with Dave and Mike, who had begun interviewing suspects.
At 11:25am the Taliban fighters were marched to the central grassy compound of their mini-citadel. The guards tied up the first eight prisoners, Jan said. "The prisoners suspected they were about to be shot. They attacked one of the guards and grabbed his gun," he added. The foreign fighters had also assumed that the television journalists were American soldiers who had come to film their execution.
Another prisoner grabbed Mike and set off a grenade, blowing him up. This conflicts with the CIA account of his death which says that he was shot.
All hell then broke loose: the prisoners shot dead five guards and grabbed their weapons, while the journalists ran for cover...
As Washington attempted to wash its hands of the episode, saying that the alliance was responsible for the prisoners, human rights lawyers warned that the Geneva convention may have been breached on two counts. This is over the degrading treatment of the Taliban, when they were tied up, and the huge firepower directed at them by US warplanes.
On the first count, article 13 of the convention says: "Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated." On the second count, the convention permits the use of force against prisoners. But it says that this must be proportionate.
Christopher Greenwood, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and joint editor of International Law Reports, said that killing people with hands tied behind their backs was illegal. "If it was heavy-handed overreaction, it was illegal,", he said.
Amid the doubts about the legality of the US and alliance response, there were also questions about the conduct of the two CIA officers. Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford University and a leading authority on the laws of war, described their conduct as "incredibly stupid and unprofessional".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 18496.html
'...General Dostum striding through the slaughtered yesterday in a long flowing brown shirt and leather jacket, insisted his soldiers had treated the prisoners humanely. As he spoke, a soldier kicked the body of a man who was lying on his side to make sure he was dead. The body rolled over to reveal that the man's arms had been tied together behind his back. Several of the dead men's arms had been tied together above the elbow, some with their own black turbans. General Dostum publicly denied the practice but an Afghan soldier under his command admitted he and his comrades had been tying the prisoner's hands when the fighting started.'
Why would you revolt if you'd previously been told that you were going to be set free?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html
'Even by the standards of Afghanistan's warlords, Dostum has an unsavory reputation. In earlier episodes of Afghanistan's wars, he was reputed to have killed those of his soldiers who broke the rules by tying them to the tracks of his tanks. But outside Mazar, his soldiers told their prisoners that Dostum wanted to make a gesture of reconciliation to help unite Afghanistan's warring tribes. Afghan members of the Taliban would be free to return to their homes, while foreigners would be detained before being handed over to the U.N. Dostum didn't search his prisoners; that was a mistake, one he would bitterly regret'.
http://www.qern.org/node/68
'Mullah Fahzel, the Taliban's commander at Kunduz, had instructed the foreign fighters to give up their weapons - but failed to tell them that they would then be taken into custody. "The foreigners thought that after surrendering to the Northern Alliance they would be free," Jan said. "They didn't think they would be put in jail."'
Maybe you're right though...maybe prisoner revolts should be dealt with by calling in air-strikes and using heavy weaponry, and prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs should be shot. I'm sure the Geneva Convention permits such things.
even if they were told they would be set free, that doesnt give them any less reason to fight. they are the Taliban, it was a war. they fight. and it was probably a foreign fighter who set off the revolt.
is this the article you posted? its pretty thorough.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 92,00.html
When Germany invaded Poland and thousands of POW's were executed, who's fault was that?
try to put it in a context you can think about where your blind nationalism doesn't cloud your judgement.
The Taliban prisoners in question were the guys the US forces were there to kill. Do you really think they are going to let local Afghan forces handle their enemy? With NO say in what went down? US forces were present when the prisoners were being held, when they were being moved, and when they were being buried, and here you're trying to blame the grunts for following orders while ignoring those who gave the orders, abu ghraib all over again.
yes i do, they had no choice. [/quote]
In one sentence i'm condemned for convicting them (i've done my research) and the next they are acquitted, and I have a feeling this is the first you've heard about this.
btw, i first heard about this on democracy now!, not a random internet site. even so, 2 of the documentary's witnesses have ended up dead, its shouldn't be taken lightly. i suggest watching it, that's why i posted it.
well there you have it folks, make a Nazi reference to prove your case. well done. and to answer your question, it was the Nazi's fault. for the story at hand, its the Afgans who did the actually killing who are at fault. so yea, not sure why you felt it was necessary to compare the Nazi;s to anything.
for the most part, yes. you really don't understand Afgan's do you? I'm no expert but from my research, Afgans do what they want. I'll try to dig up something for you but I mostly learned this from watching documentaries.
sure, US always has a say on what goes down but that doesn't mean Afgan's listen. if Afgan's decided to just start lighting up the truck, the US would be powerless to stop it short of firing back at them.
says who? you? they absolutely had a choice. I'll hve to find those documentaries about Afgan fighters. they are not puppets who do whatever we say. we are talking about hardened warriors who have fought in wars their entire lives. think about it.
Innocent until proven guilty. ever heard of that?
its called war. would you feel better if only hand guns were used in war? but please, you tell me the best way to deal with a prisoner revolt General Byzine. :roll:
can you prove American soldiers shot prisoners who had their hands tied behind their back?
i'm pretty sure if my job sent me to another state and i saw someone murder a bunch of people and then bury their bodies in mass graves and never did anything to try and stop it and THEN helped keep it a secret i wouldn't be found innocent in a court of law. at the very least helping keep it a secret would make me an accomplice
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
I'm glad you used yourself :roll: in this example. what would you have done to stop it?
there is no evidence of the US covering this up or keeping this secret