WikiLeaks: The German Armed Forces and the policy of targeted killings in Afghanistan

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WikiLeaks: The German Armed Forces and the policy of targeted killings in
Afghanistan
By Johannes Stern
3 August 2010

The more than 92,000 documents published by WikiLeaks have revealed the true
character of the war in Afghanistan. They show the brutality with which NATO
soldiers have acted against the Afghan population in order to suppress the
growing resistance against colonial occupation. War crimes are not the
exception, but the rule.

Combat reports by US soldiers show that the death of civilians is a routine
occurrence in air strikes. At roadblocks, brutalized occupying soldiers shoot
Afghans in their vehicles. Special units, such as the Task Force 373, operate
according to so-called "Capture/Kill" orders in the style of the Nazi SS. They
are subject neither to the ISAF command, nor the responsible regional command,
Centcom. They receive their orders—the killing of alleged Taliban
members—directly from the Pentagon.

The documentation shows that these special units operate according to an
"enemies list", which is arranged according to priority and operational order.
In the "working through" of this list, which runs to four figures, the death
squads invade houses and kill countless innocent men, women and children.

In a country awash with drugs, war lords and tribal feuds, often a denunciation
from a political rival suffices to place one on the list, and thereby receive
the attention of the US special forces and drones. The policy of targeted
killing equates to the execution of political opponents without any charge being
laid or a trial being held, something that is characteristic of totalitarian
dictatorships and their intelligence agencies. It runs contrary to the most
basic legal principles.

Ever since the beginning of the Afghanistan war, German governments of all
political persuasions and the parliamentary defence committee, on which
representatives of all the political groups represented in the Bundestag
(parliament) sit, have deliberately kept the German population in the dark about
the nature of these "special operations". Last autumn, the government was still
claiming that the "core mission of Task Force 373" was merely the "investigation
and arrest of persons belonging to al Qaeda or possibly the leadership of the
Taliban".

The published documents reveal these claims to be lies and provide information
not only about the deadly actions of the special commando units, but also about
the involvement of the German armed forces.

Since the summer of 2009, approximately 300 men from Task Force 373 have been
stationed at Germany's Camp Marmal in Mazar-i-Sharif, where they plan and carry
out their operations. According to Der Spiegel, the leaked documents show that
for the German ISAF leadership the "targeted killings of enemies of the
Bundeswehr...is semi-official, as a sort of service on offer".

But as Der Spiegel reports, this is not the complete story. In the spring, when
seven German soldiers were killed in a few days, "a high-ranking US officer at
the headquarters in Kabul" promised the highest-ranking German ISAF officer,
General Bruno Kasdorf, that "those behind the attacks on the Germans would be
hunted down and killed". It is a proven fact that a short time later, several
alleged Taliban were liquidated.

Under the pressure of these revelations, the spokesman of the Defence Ministry,
Christian Dienst, said last week in Berlin that the Defence Ministry was trying
to "draw a clear line between the German and American special operations forces
in Afghanistan". The Bundeswehr was providing support for the "hunting down of
terrorists", but not with the intention of killing them, he said.

According to Dienst, the Bundeswehr itself is drawing up NATO wanted lists and
calls for the detention of terrorist suspects. Moreover, the German commander in
Mazar-i-Sharif was kept informed about the operations of American special
forces. Based on what Dienst presented, Spiegel Online, in an article entitled
"Germany tolerates targeted killings", concluded: "German soldiers do not
deliberately kill, but their knowledge sometimes helps—and the federal
government takes this into account."

In further comments, Dienst had to admit that German special commandos also
carried out targeted killings themselves and actively participate in such
operations. First, he said that "targeted killing was in accordance with
international law". Germany, however, had imposed the restriction to seek
arrests. When making arrests in combat situations, however, it could happen that
suspects might be killed by German soldiers.

How many Afghans had been killed already in operations by German special forces,
Dienst would not specify. The government would be informing parliament on 23 August.

Following the Kunduz massacre last year, there have been indications that the
KSK German elite unit, which is top secret and, like its American counterpart,
operates outside the ISAF command structure, has been targeting insurgents.

According to Der Spiegel, the order to attack the two tankers in Kunduz had come
from Bundeswehr Colonel Georg Klein, leading to 147 mainly civilian victims,
because he suspected local Taliban leaders were nearby. The KSK, whom Klein
consulted before the attack, had been following these Taliban leaders.

While the media and politicians try to downplay the publication of the WikiLeaks
documents, it is increasingly clear that the Bundeswehr has cast off practically
all the restrictions that were imposed upon it when it was first established in
the aftermath of World War II. Meanwhile, it has adopted the policy of targeted
killings, as practiced by the American, British and Israeli armies for a long time.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/bund-a03.shtml

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