US military defends erasing of Afghan ambush

The military tries to manage the news. If footage damages their public image then they will delete it if they can. There seem to be widely divergent accounts of what happened. Of course the military claims the civilian deaths were a result of being caught in the crossfire.

US military defends erasing of Afghan ambush footage
Published: Monday March 5, 2007



The US military in Afghanistan Monday defended the erasing of media photographs and video after an incident which left up to 10 civilians dead, saying this was allowed in "extreme circumstances."

Photographers and cameramen working for international and Afghan media said soldiers deleted footage of a site in eastern Nangarhar province where US troops opened fire after an ambush.

Afghan officials say 10 civilians were killed. The US-led coalition says eight died in the ambush and subsequent return fire, but has not admitted outright to causing civilian deaths.

A media spokesman for the US-led coalition admitted some pictures of the scene may have been erased.

"Some of those facts may be accurate but there is some context that is due," Mitchell told AFP.

The journalists had gone beyond a security perimeter and had been asked to remove their images to "protect the integrity of the investigation," he said, adding that the scene may have been altered before they arrived.

The concern had been that the "photographers would not accurately represent what the scene looked like immediately after the ambush," Mitchell said.

"In this case we give a lot of deference to the commanders at the site conducting the investigation," he said.

However, "we have reminded our forces in the area that only in extreme circumstances is this practice condoned," Mitchell added.

The United Nations said it was trying to verify what happened.

In "general nobody should be allowed to interfere in journalists carrying out their lawful work," spokesman Adrian Edwards said.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------