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U.S. War Crimes in Afghanistan Documentary Shocks Europe
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Dead
Taliban fighters in an Afghan street
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BERLIN
, June 14
(IslamOnline & News Agencies) –
U.S.
troops committed
war crimes, as they tortured and murdered captured Taliban prisoners,
causing the “disappearance” of more than 3,000 men in the region
of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to a documentary shown to the European
Parliament.
The
20-minute documentary, entitled “Massacre At Mazar”, was shown
Wednesday, June 12, in the Reichstag, the German parliament building
in Berlin, and there were immediate calls for an international
commission to be set up to investigate charges made in the
documentary, South African Independent Online service (IOL) said.
The
film, by Irish journalist and documentary film-maker Jamie Doran,
cites witness accounts that Taliban prisoners died at the hands of
U.S.-led
Northern Alliance
soldiers,
suffocating in containers after they surrendered in late 2001 in
Kunduz, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
According
to the film,
U.S.
soldiers asked the
Afghans to get rid of the bodies to avoid the appearance of satellite
photos showing them, and the bodies of between 1,500 and 4,000
prisoners may have been buried.
French
Communist Party Euro Deputy Francis Wurtz said the International Red
Cross would be asked to carry out an investigation.
Independent
Online reported that much of the footage shown in the documentary was
taken secretly, and although witnesses were said to be living in fear
of reprisal from within
Afghanistan
itself they had
all agreed to appear at any future international war crimes tribunal
to give evidence.
One witness in the film said he had seen an American soldier break an
Afghan prisoner’s neck and pour acid on others. “The Americans did
whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them,” he stated.
Sometimes
prisoners who were beaten up and taken outside had “disappeared”,
he said.
In
other sequences, witnesses, among them two men, claimed they had been
forced to drive into the desert with hundreds of Taliban prisoners,
Independent Online said.
The
living were then summarily shot while 30 to 40 American soldiers stood
by, it was said. The prisoners had been taken there on the orders of
the local American commander, according to the documentary.
In
the film, an Afghan witness admitted to killing prisoners himself.
The
far-left Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) arranged for the special
showing of “Massacre At Mazar” in the Reichstag. Party chairman
Roland Claus was cautious regarding its content but did spoke of its
attempt at “authenticity.”
Andre Brie, a PDS member of the European Parliament, concerned by
reports of ill treatment of Taliban prisoners, said he would be in
favor of an international commission looking into “disturbing”
questions raised by the film.
At a press conference, Brie said he had known of Doran’s dangerous
film activity in
Afghanistan
, and had helped to
support him financially.
The PDS
party faction had wanted to obtain authentic footage of the war in
Afghanistan
, he said.
From the American side, the Pentagon
denied charges that Taliban prisoners in northern
Afghanistan
were massacred
amid
U.S.
complicity, AFP
said.
In
an initial reaction to the documentary, a spokesman for the U.S.
Central Command in
Florida
, which leads
U.S.
forces in
Afghanistan
, said that similar
“unfounded” accusations emerged months ago.
“I
think it surfaced in March and we looked at them, they were
unfounded,” spokesman Major Brad Lowell told AFP. “There was no
formal investigation or anything.”
Lowell
said at the time there was not “enough to start a formal
investigation.”
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