U.S. Team to Reinvestigate Deadly Strike In Afghanistan

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Raw Video: Afghan Civilians

Editor's Note: Warning - Graphic Content This is one of two videos obtained by AP that appear to show the bodies of children and adults covered in blankets and white shrouds, lending weight to Afghan and U.N. allegations that a U.S.-led raid killed scores of civilians.

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Results of a U.S. military investigation released Sept. 2 said a ground patrol by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan army troops came under heavy fire from the village as it led a midnight raid on the compound of a suspected Taliban commander known as Mullah Siddiq. Patrol members called in an airstrike when they were unable to repulse the gunfire. The accounts said the five to seven civilians killed were believed to be related to Siddiq. The report also found that 30 to 35 Taliban militants were killed.

Investigators interviewed 30 U.S. and Afghan participants in the operation, the military said.

U.S. military officials who examined topographic photos of the village and searched the area after the attack found only a few new grave sites, according to one official interviewed a week after the incident.

A U.N. official said Eide was "very satisfied he is on solid ground" in the U.N. investigation results and believed he had "no choice" other than to go public with them.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan has the dual job of helping to coordinate the international assistance effort there and to "be an advocate for human rights and for the Afghan people," the official said. He added that Eide saw little point in joining a new U.S. investigation. "The discrepancies are so huge, it's hard to believe a joint investigation would settle anything," the official said.

Some NATO officials expressed irritation that the United Nations did not consult them before making its report public. "How we handle civilian casualties -- the follow-up and investigation -- is now becoming a strategic issue," one NATO official said. Both the United Nations and non-U.S. NATO forces have complained about a lack of U.S. transparency in investigating previous incidents of civilian casualties.

The international force in Afghanistan includes troops from nearly two dozen NATO members, with 14,000 Americans as the largest contingent. The United States also fields a separate, 19,000-member force under U.S. command, leading to frequent confusion and increasing tension. Small units of U.S. Special Forces are known to operate in areas technically under NATO European command, sometimes conducting operations with Afghan army units they are training -- as was the case in Azizabad.

"We find that some of these [U.S. units] are very good at coordinating with the people in whose areas they are working," said a senior European military officer. "Others are less good. When they're good, we have no problems and we have very little collateral in terms of civilian casualties. When they don't coordinate, they tend to end up doing these operations with too little strength on their own, and their only alternative is to call in air power."

The area where the Azizabad attack took place is under the command of the Italian contingent of NATO. "It's very difficult having two organizations under two separate commands, uncoordinated, and working in the same battle space," the European military official said. "It's always a recipe for, at the very least, misunderstanding, and potentially worse."

U.S. military officials have expressed their own concerns about European forces in the past, saying that they are less adept at the kind of aggressive counterinsurgency tactics necessary to defeat resurgent Taliban fighters.

According to a report on airstrikes and civilian deaths released Monday by New York-based Human Rights Watch, NATO and the United States have differing rules of engagement governing the use of airstrikes, with NATO requiring an "overwhelming" threat and the United States allowing "anticipatory self-defense."

The vast majority of deaths caused by international troops come from airstrikes requested by Special Forces units, the report said. Using statistics provided by the U.S. Central Command Air Forces, the report noted that the number of bombing sorties has increased exponentially over the past two years, with U.S. aircraft dropping about as many tons of bombs in June and July this year as during all of 2006.

At least 1,633 Afghan civilians died in fighting last year, the report said, with about 950 killed by insurgent forces and at least 321 killed in NATO or U.S. aerial raids -- triple the number in 2006. In the first seven months of this year, at least 119 Afghan civilians were killed in 12 airstrikes, according to the report, which did not include the Azizabad bombing.

Aggressive tactics employed by U.S. Special Forces last year in Taliban-dominated Helmand province in the south prompted a senior British commander of NATO forces in the region to ask U.S. Special Forces to leave his district, according to the Human Rights Watch report and the NATO official.

The tactics have resulted in several major setbacks for the Taliban, the NATO official said, but civilian deaths resulting from U.S.-led operations and airstrikes in particular have taken a toll on the overall war effort. "U.S. Special Forces are doing a brilliant job, but at the same time, most of the really controversial things seem to be happening in that area," the official said.

DeYoung reported from Washington.