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US soldier opens fire on Afghan civilians

At least 17 killed in shooting spree outside military base in southern Kandahar province, officials say. Last Modified: 11 Mar 2012 10:38 inShare29 Email Print Share Feedback

Incident comes amid high anti-American sentiments, after US soldiers burned copies of the Quran [Reuters] A US soldier has killed more than a dozen civilians in a shooting spree in southern Afghanistan before being detained, officials say. A member of the Kandahar provincial council who visited the site of the shooting in Panjwai district told Al Jazeera that at least 17 civilians were killed when the soldier left his base early on Sunday morning and opened fire. The Kandahar governor's office put the number of killed civilians at 15. Captain Justin Brockhoff, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), could not confirm any fatalities in the incident. “This is a horrific incident, and our thoughts are with the families of the affected. Our initial reports indicate multiple civilians - between four and six- are wounded. Those civilians are receiving care at coalition medical facilities," he told Al Jazeera. "At this point we do not have an indication - we can not speculate about the individual's motives." Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Herat, said the soldier entered three houses near the base and opened fire on civilians. "We are now being told by the police sources that the US soldier left his base at three o clock this morning. It would have been pitch-black wherever he walked," he said. From the perspective of one neighbourhood in Herat "The soldier went through three separate houses, shooting at people as they slept in their beds. After the soldier shot these people, he turned himself in." Civilian casualties have been a major source of friction between President Hamid Karzai's government and the NATO forces in Afghanistan. Anti-American sentiment had already been running high before news of the latest civilian casualties. "It is frankly disastrous. It is not just a disaster for the people who were murdered and killed in their houses, it is disaster for the country I suspect," our correspondent said. Anger gripped the nation after US soldiers burned a large number of copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, at a NATO base last month, which the alliance said was "inadvertent”. At least 41 people were killed in protests that followed the burning. Najeeb Azizi, a Kabul-based Afghan analyst, said the shooting will have deep repercussions on the already tenuous relations with the US. “It is a very tragic incident in particular because the Afghan and US governments are trying to sign a strategic agreement for a long term," he said. "A very bad message the Afghan people are getting - that if US military remains in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and their attitude and behaviour remains the same - of killing innocent civilians- what will be the consequences, and how will the Afghan people respond to it." and... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/gchq-staff-war-crimes-drones GCHQ civilian staff face war crimes charge over drone strikes in Pakistan Human rights lawyers claim in High Court that civilians are 'parties to murders' Share15  reddit this Mark Townsend The Observer, Saturday 10 March 2012 Article history More than 300 drone attacks in Pakistan have been reported.  Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Civilian staff at GCHQ risk being prosecuted for war crimes as a result of a legal action being launched tomorrow over the alleged use of British intelligence in the CIA's "targeted killing" programme. Human rights lawyers will issue proceedings saying that employees at the UK intelligence agency who assist the US in directing drone attacks in Pakistan could be liable as "secondary parties to murder" and that any UK guidance allowing the passing of information to the CIA for use in the strikes is unlawful. Pakistan has previously condemned the attacks as a violation of its sovereignty, amid concern that the use of US drones contravenes international humanitarian law. Hundreds of innocent civilians are thought to have been killed as a result of drone attacks. Questions are also mounting over the role of British officials in assisting the CIA's targeting of alleged militants in Pakistan. Reports suggest that GCHQ, the intelligence agency for which the foreign secretary, William Hague, is responsible, provides "locational intelligence" to the US. The legal action, brought by the law firm Leigh Day & Co and the legal action charity Reprieve, is directed against Hague on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan last year. Malik Daud Khan was presiding over a peaceful council of tribal elders in the North Waziristan tribal area when a missile was fired from a drone, believed to have been CIA-operated. Khan was one of more than 40 people killed. The attack has intensified scrutiny over the levels of complicity between the UK and US over drone strikes. Reports have quoted GCHQ sources as justifying their forwarding of intelligence to the US as being in "strict accordance" with the law, a claim contested by lawyers. The issuing of legal proceedings at the high court tomorrow challenges the lawfulness of such alleged complicity, arguing that "there is also a significant risk that GCHQ officers may be guilty of conduct ancillary to crimes against humanity and/or war crimes, both of which are statutory offences under the International Criminal Court Act, 2001". Only individuals entitled to immunity from ordinary criminal law in respect of armed attacks are considered under international law as "lawful combatants" participating in an "international armed conflict", according to the legal papers. Richard Stein, the head of human rights at Leigh Day & Co, said that staff at GCHQ are civilians, not combatants, and that there is no recognised "international armed conflict" in Pakistan. He added: "We believe that there is credible, unchallenged evidence that the secretary of state is operating a policy of passing intelligence to officials or agents of the US government; and that he considers such a policy to be 'in strict accordance' with the law. "If this is the case, the secretary of state has misunderstood one or more of the principles of international law governing immunity for those involved in armed attacks on behalf of a state and/or the lawfulness of such attacks; and his policy, if implemented, involves the commission of serious criminal offences by employees of GCHQ or by other officials or agents of the UK government in the UK." Lawyers want to discover if there is any UK policy or guidance dealing with the circumstances in which information possibly used in directing drone attacks in Pakistan can be shared with the US. Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal action charity Reprieve, said: "What has the government got to hide? If they're not supplying information as part of the CIA's illegal drone war, why not tell us? And if they are, they need to come clean." American officials have privately admitted that the CIA's drone programme has killed many Taliban and al-Qaida commanders. A Foreign Office spokesman said that he could not comment on the issue. and.... http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/10/us-allies-begin-talk-of-potential-military-intervention-in-syria/ US, Allies Begin Talk of Potential Military Intervention in Syria A move to intervene militarily has no legal basis and could potentially escalate the conflict by John Glaser, March 10, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum The Obama administration and its allies have begun serious discussions about potential military intervention in Syria, as political approaches have failed to stem the conflict. Almost 70 countries and international mediators met in Tunis two weeks ago to consider possible non-military intervention to put a stop to the violence of the Assad regime and of the Syrian opposition, but impasse has led to growing willingness to consider military options. Under consideration is directly arming opposition forces, sendinginternational troops to guard a “safe zone” for the rebels, or bombing the President Bashar al-Assad regime’s air defenses and degrading the military capacity to continue the conflict. The latter would amount to a regime change, as it did in Libya. Any such U.S.-led intervention would be illegal under international law, since Russia and China vetoed resolutions at the UN Security Council amounting to that. No authorization for such action has been granted, or even sought, by the U.S. Congress, so it would illegal under the Constitution as well. As has been seen in previous “humanitarian interventions,” powerful states gleefully ignore the law if they feel the need to act. Aside from the legality, further militarizing the conflict in Syria could be to the detriment of Syrian civilians. The Syrian opposition is not cohesive, so getting aid to the intended people is nearly impossible. The opposition contains elements of extremists and perhaps al-Qaeda, which may indirectly end up receiving any direct military aid. Both sides have committed crimes and, as was seen in Libya, supporting an armed insurrection empowers disreputable fighting groups while marginalizing prospects for political peace. Military intervention carries a high probability that the violence will consequently escalate, spread across the region, and embroil the United States in another deadly, protracted war in the Middle East.  It is also likely that ulterior motives are at play: Washington wants to end the Assad regime  and possibly replace it with a more obedient tyranny that will no longer align itself with Iran, the number one target among imperialists and foreign policy elites.