{"id":428106,"date":"2010-03-13T04:28:31","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonplanet.com\/?p=36681"},"modified":"2010-03-13T04:28:31","modified_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:28:31","slug":"nato-%e2%80%98covered-up%e2%80%99-botched-night-raid-in-afghanistan-that-killed-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/428106","title":{"rendered":"Nato \u2018covered up\u2019 botched night raid in Afghanistan that killed five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jerome Starkey
\nLondon Times<\/a>
\nMarch<\/a> 13, 2010<\/span><\/p>\n

A night raid carried out by US<\/a> and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up, survivors have told The Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The operation on Friday, February 12, was a botched pre-dawn assault on a policeman\u2019s home a few miles outside Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, eastern Afghanistan<\/a>. In a statement after the raid titled \u201cJoint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery\u201d, Nato claimed that the force had found the women\u2019s bodies \u201ctied up, gagged and killed\u201d in a room.<\/p>\n

A Times<\/em> investigation suggests that Nato\u2019s claims are either wilfully false or, at best, misleading. More than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were US<\/a> and Afghan gunmen. The identity and status of the soldiers is unknown.<\/p>\n

The raid came more than a fortnight after the commander of US<\/a> and Nato forces in Afghanistan<\/a> issued new guidelines designed to limit the use of night raids. Special forces and Western intelligence agencies that run covert operations in Afghanistan<\/a> have been criticised for night raids based on dubious or false intelligence leading to civilian casualties.<\/p>\n