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U.S. says Afghan officials supported deadly attack
Tue Nov 4, 2008 3:43pm EST
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By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An insurgent attack that killed nine U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and nearly overran a NATO outpost was carried out with the aid of two local Afghan government officials, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
A report by a military investigator, whose identity was not released, found that the district governor and police chief were "complicit" in supporting a predawn July 13 attack on the provisional post in Wanat village near the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province.
The incident, the biggest single loss of life for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2005, showed the growing intensity of an Afghan insurgency that U.S. officials say is supplied and directed from militant safe havens across the border in Pakistan's tribal region. Twenty-seven U.S. troops and four Afghan soldiers were also injured in the attack.
The United States has stepped up cross-border missile attacks into Pakistan in recent months and staged a commando raid on Pakistani soil in September partly in an effort to disrupt militant activities blamed for an increase in insurgent violence in Afghanistan.
"The district governor and chief of police need to be replaced at a minimum, if not arrested and tried," concluded a redacted version of the 42-page document, which was dated August 13 but released this week.
However, defense and military officials in the United States could not say what action if any had been taken against the two officials, who were not named in the report.
The New York Times, which first reported on the findings on Tuesday, said U.S. military officials in Afghanistan had absolved the governor after deciding he had probably acted under duress. The newspaper said it was unclear whether the police chief was complicit.
The report presented no direct evidence against the Afghan officials, other than to note "the collusion that took place" with insurgent forces.
But it was highly critical of the role of the local Afghan National Police, saying "the ANP garrison nearby was uncommunicative at best, deliberately failing to inform U.S. and (Afghan army) leaders at the (base) about a meeting with locals about security in the area."
U.S. and Afghan commandos later discovered the local police station of 20 officers to possess an arms cache containing over 100 firearms, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons, many of which appeared to have been used recently.
About 200 militants attacked the outpost and its heavily outnumbered force of 48 U.S. troops and 24 Afghan army soldiers with rocket, grenade and machine-gun fire only five days after the troops had arrived at the site.
The battle raged for about four hours until U.S. and Afghan forces repelled the attackers with help from warplanes and attack helicopters.
Most of the deaths and injuries occurred within the first 15 to 20 minutes of the assault.
The report said between 21 and 52 insurgents were killed, including some who had reached the perimeter of the post before the fighting ended.
U.S. and Afghan forces, operating as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, withdrew from the site two days later.
(Editing by Anthony Boadle)
© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
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