With the Americans on their way out of Iraq, Afghanistan, where, if anything, the battle with the Taliban is worsening of late, the rising number of civilian deaths in that conflict has become a major concern. It also appears to have triggered increasing hostility towards foreign troops in the country, including Australians. Sophie McNeill travelled to Afghanistan to find out what effect this euphemistically-labelled 'collateral damage' - code for civilian deaths - is having on attempts to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. A warning - Sophie's story contains some pretty strong language.

 

 

REPORTER:  Sophie McNeill

 

Australian troops exchange heavy fire with the Taliban in the southern province of Oruzgan in May.  With the insurgents closing in and threatening to entrap them, the soldiers call in an air strike. It's not publicly known if anyone - Taliban or civilian - was killed or injured in this bombing. But as the number of Afghan civilians killed in the fight to eradicate the Taliban rises, questions are increasingly being raised over missions like this.

 

HAMAYON HAMIDZADA, PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN:  Of course we know in a war, you cannot completely avoid civilian causalities but making it so frequent causes the people to turn against us. It turns the population against us and also it brings the goodwill of the Afghan people really, really, really down.

 

There are currently more than 60,000 foreign soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and the UN estimates that last year they were responsible for the deaths of more than 800 civilians.

 

HAMAYON HAMIDZADA:  Because the people of Afghanistan see the international forces as their friends, as people who have come to help them. And when they themselves become the targets as civilians, then they ask the question - are we friends or not?

 

It's not easy to spot who are your friends in a place like Oruzgan. 10 Australian soldiers have already lost their lives serving here. The Taliban have been waging a fierce insurgency amongst a civilian population and the line between friend and foe is frequently blurred.

 

AIR CHIEF MARSHAL ANGUS HOUSTON, AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE:  Counterinsurgency operations carry risk and tragically, despite the best training, preparation and leadership, civilian casualties can occur.

 

In September 2008, Australian soldiers opened fire and killed Rozi Khan. An important tribal leader and former police chief, he was a fierce opponent of the Taliban. Rozi Khan was just one of the Afghan civilians mistakenly killed by Australian troops. Others include a 6-month-old baby, a teenage girl, five children and two suspected suicide bombers later found to be unarmed.

 

REPORTER (Translation): Are those pictures of the murdered Rahz Mohammad?

 

BROTHER (Translation):  Yes, these are pictures of him.

 

 

For the brother of one young man, speaking to the Australian media for the first time, there is no excuse for such errors.

 

BROTHER (Translation) : He was coming home, it was 1pm.  The Australians opened fire and killed him under the minaret.

 

24-year-old father of four Rahz Mohammad was shot dead by Australian troops in the Tarin Kowt market on 24 July 2007. They thought he was a suicide bomber and said he failed to stop when ordered but he was found not to have any weapons on him.

 

BROTHER (Translation):  How can we forgive them?  They deliberately killed my brother who hadn’t threatened them or fired at them. They shot him dead.  How can we forgive them? They are foreigners and we have no power over them.

 

It's difficult to find out information about civilians who may have been killed in actions involving Australian forces. For example, the Defence Department released this statement in May, saying it will review the circumstances surrounding the deaths of four men... in a fire fight. Dateline has learnt that a woman also died of her injuries. But there's no mention of her in the press statement and the media wasn't told about her death. Brigadier Rick Burr is the Director General of Military Strategic Commitments in Canberra.

 

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR, STRATEGIC COMMITMENTS, ADF: It is inconclusive that we may have caused that casualty. Indeed it was most likely that it was - that this particular casualty was caused by the Taliban.

 

REPORTER: But was it ruled out that it wasn't caused by Australians? 100% ruled out?

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: I can't answer that question.

 

REPORTER: How many other cases, like this, have not been reported?

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: Well, we can only act on information that is reported.

 

REPORTER: Reported to the public? You knew about it….

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR:  If it is reported to us, then it will be reported to the public.

 

REPORTER: But this wasn't.

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: This particular issue –

 

REPORTER: This death wasn't reported.

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: I can't comment on what exactly happened at that time.

 

The rising civilian death toll is causing such concern that three weeks ago, the UN special representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, asked NATO defence ministers to urgently review all special forces operations in the country telling them, "The political costs are simply disproportionate to the military gains."

 

 

DAVID KILCULLEN, COUNTER-INSURGENCY EXPERT:  I think Kai Eide has been one of many people who've said things like that over the last year or two, and in fact President Karzai has been making very similar points for about three years now. You may win tactical victory by killing Taliban if also kill or injure civilians and alienate the population in a given area that can be seen as a strategic defeat.

 

I'm on my way to meet a man who may well be Australia's fiercest critic in Afghanistan. His name is Hajii Abdul Khaliq.

 

HAJIL ABDUL KHALIQ, AFGHAN MP (Translation): The Australian troops don't have a good reputation in Afghanistan. People hate the Australian troops.

 

He is one of three members from Oruzgan to be elected to Afghanistan's national parliament, and definitely no friend of the Taliban. Hajii Abdul Khaliq makes extraordinary allegations against Australian soldiers.

 

HAJIL ABDUL KHALIQ (Translation): The Australians have shot my daughter my wife, my family in the daytime. They were in their car. They have killed and injured my family members.

 

On the 5 July 2006, Khaliq's relatives' car was fired on as they were returning to Tarin Kowt. His brother-in-law was killed, his wife blinded and Khaliq's daughter lost her leg.

 

HAJIL ABDUL KHALIQ (Translation): The dead and wounded, including women and children were lying on the ground, and I swear that they did not even give them a bottle of water.

 

In the fog of war it's often extremely difficult to establish the facts but Hajji Khaliq is adamant it was Australians who shot up his family.

 

HAJIL ABDUL KHALIQ (Translation): Their tanks were standing right on the hill. The people knew the interpreters who were with them. The governor and the police chief investigated they were Australians. And they found out in their investigation they were Australian not Americans. No Dutch there on those days, they established they were Australians.

 

His claims have been assessed by the ADF who reject his allegations.

 

ANGUS HOUSTON: The assessment found that there is no evidence of, nor any suggestion or indication that such evidence may exist to support media reporting that Australian Special Forces were involved in the incident.

 

But the 'Age' newspaper claims there was a cover-up of the attack. Nick McKenzie is the paper's special investigations reporter.

 

NICK McKENZIE, REPORTER, THE AGE: What the 'Age' reported was that there was information collected on the ground in Afghanistan by Australian defence officials. This information included things like putting the SAS soldiers in the vicinity of the area where the family was shot. That there was contact there was exchanges of fire - reported exchanges of fire - between insurgents and Australian defence personnel at around the time this incident happened.

 

REPORTER: The chief of the defence force, Air Chief Marshal Houston, has said that a further assessment found that there is no evidence to support the 'Age's story. I mean, do you stand by your story?

 

NICK McKENZIE:  We do stand by our story. And I think it is incumbent on the defence force to, if they have done it - a secondary inquiry - well release it and show the public what they have done in terms of that secondary inquiry. Have they spoken to everybody on the ground at the time of the incident? Have they reviewed all the information that is held, informally and formally, in Defence Department computers in Afghanistan and Canberra. If they have done that fine, but release it. The incident happened in 2006. Why can't they release that information and show us, the media and the public, that indeed it has been a very thorough investigation?

 

Dateline asked Defence for a full copy of the second inquiry but they declined our request.  While I'm in Afghanistan my local producer Ali gets a call from a reporter based in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Oruzgan province. It's a claim of more civilian casualties. He says a helicopter has fired on two cars in the Mirabad region of the province.

 

REPORTER TO SALAAM ALEIKUM (Translation): A witness who was injured in the attack told me they were all civilians in two cars driving home from the city. It was late afternoon just before prayer time. Two helicopters appeared and fired at them setting two cars on fire.

 

We are told that earlier that day, Australian troops had been seen operating about 5km away from where the cars were fired upon.

 

SALAAM ALEIKUM (Translation):  So the Taliban and the Australian troops exchanged fire, then these people were attacked?

 

REPORTER TO SALAAM ALEIKUM (Translation):  Yes, the Taliban first fired on Australian and government troops. But the cars were far away from that area. The civilians were not aware of any fighting going on.

 

We asked a reporter in Tarin Kowt to go to the local hospital and interview the people there who claimed to be victims of the attack.

MAN (Translation): We are from Chinator district.  We were visiting relatives in the city. Late afternoon we left the city with our women and children in a passenger car. Near Kachkul village two helicopters appeared and bombed us.

 

REPORTER (Translation):  Can you tell me how many were killed?

 

MAN (Translation):  In this incident, eight were killed, including women and children. We brought three wounded here, including a 3-month-old baby who is here with its mother.

 

The doctor at Tarin Kowt hospital backs up these people's claims.

 

DOCTOR (Translation):  In total,  eight people have died from the two vehicles. Four were brought to the hospital injured.

 

WOMAN (Translation):   I'm from Shplogh.

 

REPORTER: (Translation): Can you tell us what happened? Where were you heading?

 

WOMAN (Translation): Home from the city where we were getting medicine.

 

REPORTER (Translation):  Were other women and children with you?

 

WOMAN (Translation): Yes a child and a woman .Then they brought us here.

 

REPORTER (Translation):  Do you know whether the troops were American, Australian, Irish?

 

MAN (Translation): No one knew who they were. Two helicopters shot at and bombed the cars, setting them on fire, killing the women and children. The survivors were pulled out.

 

The Australian military confirms they ordered an air strike on two vehicles, at the same place and time as the people in the hospital claim.

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: Through intelligence and aerial surveillance we know that both of those vehicles were destroyed and there were no survivors.

 

 

 

REPORTER: No survivors? So what about these people in the hospital?

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: The insurgents, the Taliban use propaganda and misinformation to often discredit the coalition forces operating in Afghanistan by accusations of civilian causalities. But in relation to the claim that you make - we have - and I couldn't speculate as to how they happened. But in relation to this particular incident we are absolutely confident and confirm through intelligence that there were no civilian casualties caused by coalition forces.

 

REPORTER:  Well it's not a claim that I make. It's a claim that these people in Tarin Kowt hospital make. And their description matches exactly what the department told me about the incident.

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR:  We can confirm through footage - surveillance footage - that there were no civilians in the vicinity of these two vehicles. The vehicles themselves were occupied by insurgents who were positively identified and as we said, there were no survivors.

 

REPORTER: Will the Department release that footage to prove that there were no civilians injured?

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: The Department will not release that footage.

 

The Department says they can't release the footage because of security reasons. And without viewing the vision, it's impossible to clarify exactly what happened and to explain these conflicting accounts. Dateline has also been seeking information from the Department in relation to a story we broadcast four months ago. Local man Zaher Khan claimed Australian troops killed his daughter, four other children and two adults in an unprovoked attack. The Defence Department confirms the deaths but refuses to provide any other details saying an inquiry is still under way.

 

PROFESSOR DONALD ROTHWELL, ANU LAW DEPARTMENT:  I think that there are some legitimate questions to be asked in terms of the appropriateness of the Australian Defence Force conducting internally, and keeping completely internal these types of investigations.

 

Legal expert Professor Donald Rothwell teaches military law to ADF lawyers at the Australian National University in Canberra.

 

PROFESSOR DONALD ROTHWELL: At the end of the day, it is really the Australian Defence Force, the Department of Defence investigating itself and clearly that can't be appropriate for the purposes of pure independence in these types of matters.

 

DAVID KILCULLEN:  It makes sense that you have both a military investigation, because you need that understanding of the military situation when an event takes place. But it is also important that you have somebody who is an external, impartial judge or ombudsman type figure to apply that degree of external advocacy or indeed accountability to these kinds of things.

 

The lead force in Afghanistan, the US military, is also under scrutiny for the way they conduct their investigations into civilian deaths. This is the aftermath of a US bombing raid on 4 May in the western province of Farah.

 

MAN (Translation): They were all my family. my brother, his son, my cousins, my sister, my nephews. They were all together. They were all murdered - out of seven families, four people survived.

 

The US army's investigation into the incident estimated that 26 civilians had been killed. But Nader Nadery, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, tells a very different story.

 

NADER NADERY, AFGHAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION:  We found that around 97 people have lost their life. It was a terrible incident. We did find that at least 86 of these 97 people are women and children - we found 21 of them women, we found 31 are girls under 18, we found 34 boys under 18.

 

REPORTER: Is the government disappointed that's there such a discrepancy between your numbers of civilians killed and the numbers that the Americans give?

 

HAMAYON HAMIDZADA: Let's not make civilian casualties just a matter of numbers. One life lost is too many.

 

The American military concluded that nobody would be punished or reprimanded over this incident and the Afghan Government is now calling for an end to all air strikes.

 

HAMAYON HAMIDZADA:  The President is on the record asking for putting an end to air strikes because you are acting on poor intelligence and its up in the air and the potential of civilians getting hurt is extremely high. So what you are asking, number one, is to bring the air raids down to zero.

 

REPORTER: Why does the Australian military continue to order air strikes on targets after the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has called for an end to all air strikes in his country?

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: When the circumstances dictate that there is no other viable option air strikes are used in accordance with very strict rules of engagement in accordance with the commander of the international forces in Afghanistan's clear direction in terms of how air power is used and, as I said, in a very discretionary and last-resort way.

 

REPORTER: But Brigadier, he is the President of Afghanistan and he has asked for all air strikes to end. Doesn't that mean the Australian military has to stop doing this?

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: The Australian military work to the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. It's his prerogative to negotiate that with the President of Afghanistan.

 

There is now a new commander of the international forces in Afghanistan American General Stanley McChrystal. After his appointment three weeks ago, McChrystal called for a culture shift in the way the war is being fought. Saying more needs to be done to protect the lives of Afghan civilians.

 

GENERAL STANLEY McCHRYSTAL: If we gain that trust we cannot lose. If we lose that trust we cannot win.

 

BRIGADIER RICK BURR: The Australian Defence Force is already well advanced. We understand the situation in Afghanistan very, very well. Our forces are culturally attuned to the sensitivities of Afghanistan and are applying them to very good effect.

 

Australia's cultural sensitivity doesn't wash with the Oruzgan MP Hajii Khaliq. He wants Australian forces to fundamentally change their ways or, he says, they should pack up and go home.

 

HAJIL ABDUL KHALIQ (Translation): I have only one message for the people of Australia, and the Australian government as the representative of the Oruzgan people. First, they should send better troops here and give them some good advice. They should stop their soldiers from doing bad actions; prohibit them from searching our houses, from disrespecting us and killing our people, otherwise they should withdraw their troops from our province Oruzgan and from Afghanistan.   We look to God for our security, not to these people.  We trust in God.

 

 

Reporter/Camera

SOPHIE McNEILL 

 

Washington

KEVIN RAULLERSON (Camera)

BERNIE OZOL (Sound)

 

Canberra

MARTIN HELMREICH (Camera)

BEN HARRIS (Sound)

 

Researcher

MELANIE MORRISON

 

Local Producer

ALI SAFI

 

Editors

ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS

NICK O’BRIEN

 

Producer

GEOFF PARISH

 

Translations / Subtitling

FAZEL RESHAD

 

Original Music composed by

VICKI HANSEN