- The US military has expanded an investigation
into a special forces raid in Afghanistan last month in response to allegations
that villagers taken prisoner were beat and kicked by US troops, the Pentagon
said.
The allegations were made by four villagers who were among the 27 people
taken prisoner in the January 24 raid and then released last week after
investigators determined they were neither Taliban nor al-Qaeda as originally
suspected.
"The investigation is still ongoing and the secretary and General
Franks have asked for more information about those allegations," Victoria
Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters, referring to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and to Army General Tommy Franks, the US commander.
The investigation was launched last month after the president of the Afghan
interim government, Hamid Karzai, complained that US forces had mistaken
friendly forces for al-Qaeda in the raid on the village of Hazar Kadam,
some 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kandahar in the province of Uruzgan.
The Pentagon has said at least 15 people were killed in the raid, which
was carried out by US special forces and initially hailed as a success.
The district police chief, who was among the four making the allegations,
told The New York Times and The Washington Post that soldiers who stormed
his district headquarters building beat and kicked his men even though
he shouted that they were friends.
The police chief, Abdul Rauf, said he had a rib cracked and was knocked
unconscious by the soldiers.
The men said they were bound and flown to Kandahar by helicopter where
they were made to lie on the floor of a hangar where they were beat and
kicked throughout the night.
One teenaged prisoner, Aktar Muhammad, said he was picked up and thrown
to the floor three times, blacking out once from a blow to the head, the
New York Times said.
The beatings stopped after the first day, according to the reports, possibly
because they told interrogators that they were supporters of Kazai.
Six criminals who were captured in the raid were separated from the others.
But the others were kept in what they described as a "cage" with
wooden bars and a canvas top. One of the prisoners was kept in solitary
confinement in a shipping container for eight days, according to their
accounts.
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