ISLAMABAD – CIA-backed security units in Afghanistan are committing “warcrimes” and other “grave” rights abuses with impunity, according to adamning report by Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based rights group suggested that the units — recruited,trained and funded by the US intelligence agency — should be disbanded forunlawful tactics such as summary executions, enforced disappearances,night raids into homes and indiscriminate airstrikes.
“They are illustrative of a larger pattern of serious laws-of-warviolations — some amounting to war crimes — that extends to all provincesin Afghanistan where these paramilitary forces operate with impunity,” thewatchdog said in a 53-page report on Thursday.
The report, titled “They’ve Shot Many Like This’: Abusive Night Raids byCIA-Backed Afghan Strike Forces link”,documented 14 cases in which CIA-backed counter-terrorism units committedserious abuses in the Asian country between late 2017 and mid-2019.
During the last two years, these airstrikes have unlawfully claimed thelives of many civilians in night raids, it further said, adding thatthe forces have also attacked healthcare facilities for allegedly treatingmilitants and killed staff.
Moreover, they also “forcibly” have taken detainees to undisclosedlocations.
“Air operations may precede or follow a night raid. In a number ofincidents Human Rights Watch investigated, airstrikes or helicopter-firedmunitions killed and injured civilians before or after night raids,” thereport said, warning that the US air raids in Afghanistan dramaticallyincreased civilian casualties, Press TV has reported.