WikiLeaks: More Afghan war documents to come
The White House, Britain and Pakistan have all condemned the online whistle-blowing group’s release of the classified documents, one of the largest unauthorised disclosures in military history. The Afghan government in Kabul said it was “shocked” at the release but insisted most of the information was not new.
The documents cover some known aspects of the troubled nine-year conflict: US special operations forces have targeted militants without trial, Afghans have been killed by accident, and US officials have been infuriated by alleged Pakistani intelligence cooperation with the very insurgent groups bent on killing Americans.
Still, they also included unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures.
Assange told reporters in London that what’s been reported so far on the leaked documents has “only scratched the surface” and said some 15,000 files on Afghanistan are still being vetted by his organisation.
He said he believed that “thousands” of US attacks in Afghanistan could be investigated for evidence of war crimes, although he acknowledged such claims would have to be tested in court.
“It is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime,” he said.
Assange pointed in particular to a deadly missile strike ordered by Task Force 373, a unit allegedly charged with hunting down and killing senior Taliban targets. He said there was also evidence of cover-ups when civilians were killed, including what he called a suspiciously high number of casualties that US forces attributed to ricochet wounds.
White House national security adviser General Jim Jones said the release of the documents “put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk”. In a statement, he took pains to point out that the documents describe a period from January 2004 to December 2009, mostly during the administration of President George W Bush.
Jones noted that time period was before President Obama announced a new strategy.
Pakistan’s Ambassador Husain Haqqani agreed, saying the documents “do not reflect the current on-ground realities,” in which his country and Washington are “jointly endeavouring to defeat al-Qaida and its Taliban allies”.
The US and Pakistan assigned teams of analysts to read the records online to assess whether sources or locations were at risk.
Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, said yesterday that the accusations it had close connections to Taliban militants were malicious and unsubstantiated.
A senior ISI official, speaking anonymously, said they were from unverified raw intelligence reports and were meant to impugn the reputation of the spy agency.
Hamid Gul, a former head of the ISI who is mentioned many times in the documents, also denied allegations that he’d worked with the insurgents.
The New York Times said the documents reveal that only a short time ago, there was far less harmony in US and Pakistani exchanges.
The Times says the “raw intelligence assessments” by lower-level military officers suggest that Pakistan “allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders”.
The Guardian, however, interpreted the documents differently, saying they “fail to provide a convincing smoking gun” for complicity between the Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban.
The leaked records include detailed descriptions of raids carried out by Task Force 373 against what US officials considered high-value terrorist targets.
Some of the raids resulted in unintended killings of Afghan civilians, according to the documents.
During the targeting and killing of Libyan fighter Abu Laith al-Libi, described in the documents as a senior al-Qaida commander, the death toll was reported as six enemy fighters and seven non-combatants – all children.
Task Force 373 selected its targets from 2,000 senior Taliban and al-Qaida figures posted on a “kill or capture” list, known as JPEL, the Joint Prioritised Effects List, the Guardian said.
Assange yesterday compared the impact of the released material to the opening of the East German secret police archives. “This is the equivalent of opening the Stasi archives,” he said.
He also said his group had many more documents on other subjects, including files on countries from across the globe.
“We have built up an enormous backlog of whistleblower disclosures,” he said.
Assange said he believed more material would flood amid the blaze of publicity.
“It is our experience that courage is contagious,” he said. “Sources are encouraged by the opportunities that they see before them.”
The Pentagon said it was trying to assess the damage caused by the internet leak.
The documents are described as battlefield reports compiled by various military units that provide an unvarnished look at combat in the past five years.
Colonel Dave Lapan, a defence department spokesman, said the military would probably need “days, if not weeks” to review all the documents and determine “the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners”.
The Pentagon declined to respond to specifics detailed in the documents, including reports of the Taliban’s use of heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.
“Just because they are posted on the internet, doesn’t make them unclassified,” Lapan said.
The Pentagon says it is still investigating the source of the documents. The military has detained Bradley Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Baghdad, for allegedly transmitting classified information. But the latest documents could have come from anyone with a secret-level clearance, Lapan said.
Nato refused to comment on the leak, but individual nations said they hoped it wouldn’t harm current operations in Afghanistan.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there has been significant progress recently in building up the Afghan state “so I hope any such leaks will not poison that atmosphere”.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned about possible “backlashes” and urged all sides in Afghanistan to work toward national reconciliation.
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