WASHINGTON, Feb 11: Afghan men who were misidentified by US military forces as Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters said they were beaten during their capture and imprisonment at a US base in Kandahar, leading US newspapers reported on Monday.
But the US Army dismissed the allegations, saying the detainees had received humane treatment.
“I am aware of the allegation, however, we are extremely pleased with the quality of care provided to the detainees,” US Army Major A.C. Roper said in Kandahar.
“Any accusation of excessive force is not consistent with the humane treatment our forces provide,” he added.
According to a report published in The Washington Post, several of the 27 former prisoners who were released on Wednesday, said US soldiers treated them so harshly that two men lost consciousness during the beatings while others suffered fractured ribs, loosened teeth and swollen noses.
Similar accounts appeared on Monday in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.
“They were beating us on the head and back and ribs,” the Post quoted farmer Allah Noor as saying. “They were punching us with fists, kicking me with their feet. They said, ‘You are terrorist! You are Al Qaeda! You are Taliban!’”
Noor was among the 27 men captured during a Jan 24 US military attack on a school and a district government office in the southern town of Uruzgan.
Pentagon officials had described these facilities as outposts for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Twenty-one other villagers were killed in the assault and one US soldier was wounded.
The US military released the captives two weeks after they were detained, with one officer telling them, “We are sorry. We committed a mistake bombing this place,” the Post reported, quoting the ex-prisoners.
DNA TEST: US soldiers investigating the results of a missile attack against alleged Al-Qaeda leaders were bringing human remains and other evidence to a base in northern Afghanistan for analysis, a US military spokesman said on Monday.
“They have located evidence which will be turned in for DNA testing,” US Army Major A.C. Roper said.
About 50 soldiers from the US 101st Airborne Division were working at the site of the missile strike last week near Khost in eastern Afghanistan, Roper said.
“The forces on the ground have found significant evidence that will be turned in for analysis,” Roper said.
The material, primarily bits of skin, bone or hair, could provide important DNA clues to identify who was killed by the missile, US officials have said.
Officials said the CIA-launched missile strike in a former Al Qaeda stronghold appeared to have hit its target — a tall man who was being treated with great deference by those around him.
US media and Pentagon officials have speculated that the tall man may have been Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
But the Washington Post on Monday quoted villagers in Zhawar Kili as saying those killed by the strike included Mir Ahmad, a man known for his height, as well as Daraz and Jahan Gir, all local civilian residents.
The Afghan Islamic Press had earlier reported that Afghan civilians were killed in the attack, not Al Qaeda leaders as claimed by the Pentagon.
Roper said reports those hit were innocent Afghans was “not consistent with our intelligence.”
Late on Sunday, troops guarding the perimeter of the base captured three people and turned them over to Afghan authorities, Roper said. He did not specify why the three were captured less than a kilometre from the base.
“Even though they weren’t inside the perimeter, they were close enough to cause concern,” he said.—AFP