Afghans killed “needlessly”

A few U.S. Marines shot and killed 19 Afghan civilians “needlessly” after a suicide bomb struck their convoy in March, a former member of the Marines unit testified at a military court yesterday.

Nathaniel Travers testified that only a few gunners fired until the captain ordered the firing to stop. None of the marines were seriously injured in the suicide blast, which killed one bystander.

This testimony is interesting because the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has earlier claimed that the marines had in fact used “indiscriminate and excessive force” in shooting into the crowd after the attack.

Shortly after the shootings, an army commander apologized and paid condolence money to families of the victims, but this apology was later denounced by senior Marine officials as premature. This was one of a spate of civilian casualty incidents last spring that elicited severe condemnation from the Afghan government and international observers.