U.N. Not Qualified to Assess U.S. Raid in Afghanistan

NEW YORK, Aug 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A United Nations fact-finding team which accused U.S. forces in Afghanistan of removing vital evidence from the scene of a fatal bombing raid was not qualified to make such an assessment, a U.N. spokesman said Thursday, August 1.

Initial findings of the U.N. team, which were leaked to The Times newspaper in London this week, said American troops removed evidence of shrapnel, bullets and traces of blood shortly after the raid on a wedding party, claims which have been fiercely denied by the United States.

Afghan authorities have said 48 people were killed and 117 injured, mostly women and children, during the attack on June 30 in central Uruzgan province.

Spokesman David Singh told reporters here that the U.N.'s special representative to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, had asked the fact-finding team to substantiate their allegations.

Brahimi also decided that the final report would not be made public, but should be handed over to U.S. and Afghan officials.

Singh said that representatives from U.N. agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UNHCR, its refugee body, were dispatched from neighboring Kandahar province four hours after the bombing ended. Local government officials and members of aid agencies such as Medecins Sans Frontiers also accompanied them.

"We would like to stress that the U.N. was not involved in either an inquiry or investigation but was simply responding to humanitarian needs as it does everywhere in the world in similar situations," said Singh.

"In the course of conducting an assessment they interviewed people ... and were given certain answers. They sent a very quick report in.

"Mr Brahimi looked at it and said, 'okay you are humanitarian people. You are neither ballistics, military, police or any form of investigators. Can you check these facts again before we make a statement'."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan added, "The U.N. team went there to see what had happened and also to check if there was any need for humanitarian assistance and in the process gathered the fact-finding information that the villagers shared with them," confirming that the team was "asked to clarify some of the judgments and comments" in the initial report, reports CNN.

Asked if the final report contained reference to the removal of evidence, Singh said: "I am not at liberty to say what is in that report because we are not qualified to make that kind of investigation."

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the same: "Our people weren't qualified to do an investigation."

An initial U.S. probe into the incident made little headway as investigators were not shown any graves. But a second, higher-ranking inquiry team is currently carrying out a more detailed investigation.

The preliminary U.N. report is understood to have found there was "no evidence" U.S. planes were fired upon by anti-aircraft weapons.

The United States, whose forces are in Afghanistan seeking remnants of the former Taliban regime and its Al-Qaeda allies, has insisted that coalition aircraft attacked only after they were fired on.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Roger King told reporters earlier this week at Bagram air base, the headquarters of the coalition in Afghanistan, that there had been "no cover-up at all" over the incident.

He also denied that coalition forces had removed evidence in the immediate aftermath, although a U.S. fact-finding team that went to Uruzgan to probe the incident a few days later had collected samples.

"The only shrapnel and bullets and blood samples that have been picked up by U.S. forces were those that were picked up by ... the fact-finding team. We reported that they picked up shell-casings and shrapnel."

Singh said that the U.N. was keen not to issue a report that could conflict with the investigation being conducted by the United States, which also features a senior Afghan military officer in an observer's role.

"The final findings of the United Nations have now been communicated to ... them and we are certain they will make good use of it," he added.

Commenting on speculation of U.S. pressure to withhold the report, news agencies report a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday, July 31, that Washington did not pressure the United Nations to revise or prevent the release of the report.

Eckhard said Tuesday, July 30, that Annan had no contacts with U.S. officials about the decision. After checking with Brahimi in Kabul, Eckhard reported Wednesday that neither did the U.N. envoy, commenting, "I have seen no evidence of communication between either the U.S. government or the Afghan government trying to influence our conduct of this fact-finding mission or of what we do with the results."

"There's no sign, there's no suspicion on our part of any [U.N.] cover-up," he added.

• Pentagon Denies Cover-Up, U.N. Revising Report 

• U.S. Troops Covered Up Evidence of Afghan Wedding Attack: U.N.