Afghanistan Video and Report: The US Military's "Kill Team"

The "Kill Team" documentary from Der Speigel --- Warning: Graphic Content
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John Horne writes for EA:

Over the last two weeks, and days before violent protests erupted in Afghanistan, the US magazine Rolling Stone and Germany's Der Speigel have presented investigations --- including graphic photographs --- of atrocities committed by US troops. Soldiers belonging to a platoon stationed in Kahdahar Province murdered local Afghans, took pictures of themselves posing with the bodies, planted weapons, and even removed body parts to keep as trophies.

The Pentagon has been keen to portray the self-titled Kill Team as a rogue group operating in secret. However, questions remain over the extent to which their actions were known, approved, and even joined by other members of their company, including officers.

News of the murders first broke last summer. The Pentagon charged five soldiers of the 5th Stryker Battalion with pre-meditated murder and seven others with lesser offences. At the same time, they worked to restrict any other information about the killings. Echoing their response to the scandal in Iraq's Abu Ghraib detention centre, the Pentagon exerted a huge effort to suppress more than 4,000 photographs and videos taken by the men, cataloguing their war crimes.

However, the pictures appear to have been circulated far beyond the group, the Pentagon could not achieve a complete shutdown. A significant number appear to have escaped control, although Der Spiegel chose to only publish three photographs, whilst Rolling Stone published more than a dozen, alongside two videos.

Many of the images feature unidentified bodies, raising concerns that more murders have been committed and are yet to be investigated. In response, the Pentagon sought to reassure the world that court-martials are being held and that they will "relentlessly pursue the truth, no matter where it leads". Whether this will involve charging higher-ranking soldiers, exploring how widely the images were distributed, and investigating the circumstances of the photographed deaths is yet to be seen. So is the extent to which this latest military scandal will contribute to unrest in Afghanistan and the region.