The documentary unveiled crimes perpetrated by U.S. forces in Afghanistan

By Khaled Schmitt, IOL Germany Correspondent

BONN, December 20 (IslamOnline) – The German TV broadcast late Thursday, December 19, a documentary on Qanduz and Jangi massacres in northern Afghanistan, unveiling crimes perpetrated by American forces in the war-torn country.

Irked by the documentary, the U.S. State Department lambasted the film and the TV network, even before the documentary went on air.

It cast doubts on the evidence put forward by the documentary that confirms the direct involvement of the American forces with Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dustom in killing 3050 Taliban prisoners.

Despite harsh American criticism, the semi-official ARD channel of the German TV insisted on airing the documentary, brushing aside mounting U.S. pressure throughout last week, including an official request not to broadcast the documentary.

The channel president told a German news agency that Pentagon laid pressures on them not to broadcast the documentary, but did not try to produce any evidence to counter the accusations put forward in the documentary.

This, he asserted, made the decision of airing the documentary a professional commitment and a moral obligation and duty.

The American campaign against the documentary backfired on the Americans, with a special airing of the documentary before the human rights committee of the German parliament, hours before it was put on ARD screens.

The documentary was also showed, two weeks ago, before a similar committee of the European parliament.

For a whole hour, the film documents testimonies of eyewitnesses on the details of atrocities against thousands of Taliban fighters in Qanduz, Ganji, Mazar-e-Sharif  and other provinces.

The documentary showed footage of human bones, bodies and remains scattered across 1000 cubic meters.

The eyewitnesses told about seeing tens of American soldiers cooperating with Dustom's forces in unloading huge trucks loaded with hundreds of Taliban prisoners who were creamed inside.

Some of the witnesses, who then served with Dustom's forces, that they drove the trucks and abandoned them in the desert between Qanduz and Shebrigan, leaving Taliban prisoners suffocate to death.

The documentary director said he collected his materials from the archive of the U.S. State Department, asserting that two of the witnesses paid their lives for their testimonies.

At the end of his documentary, the director, one of the world most prominent ones in his field, reaffirmed the readiness of the living witnesses to voluntarily testify before an international investigation committee that would offer them protection.

Eleven world TV networks including the British channel Five and the Italian Rai 3 had bought the documentary and plan to broadcast it later.