Afghan investigators claim more than a dozen U.S. soldiers involved in Kandahar killings

As with NATO airstrikes and night raids in Afghanistan the story told by Afghan authorities and many locals is completely contradictory to the official story usually. According to the U.S. and NATO official story the Kandahar shootings were the work of one lone U.S. soldier.

However, Kandahar MP Naheem Hameedzain reports that that an Afghan investigation has concluded the shootings were carried out by a team of U.S. soldiers. He said:“All the villagers that we talked to said there were 15 to 20 men who had conducted a night raid operation in several areas in the village,” He noted as well that the villages attacked were quite a distance apart. The accused Robert Bales would have had to walk several kilometers between attacks.

Most western mainstream media repeat the official mantra as if it were the obviously correct version. At least in the first reports most papers did note that there were a number of eyewitnesses who reported that there were a number of soldiers. In later reports these seem to be forgotten.

The Afghan parliament has reacted to the U.S. refusal to try Bales in Afghanistan by unaminously voting that Afghanistan withdraw from the existing military agreement (SOFA) with the U.S. However Karzai has not signed the resolution so far. He did complain that the U.S. did not cooperate with the Afghan probe into the killings. Indeed Bales was whisked off to the U.S. no doubt before the Afghans had any chance to interview him. For more see this article.