Last year, American warplanes dropped a record number of bombs on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, part of an effort that started in late 2018 to push the Taliban toward a deal to end nearly 20 years of conflict.
In the same period, allegations of civilian casualties reviewed by the Pentagon doubled. But the number of in-depth investigations into those allegations dropped by half. Hundreds of charges of Afghan civilian deaths and injuries as a result of airstrikes received only an initial assessment.
Investigating claims of death or injury is key to ensuring civilians in conflict are protected in the future. But as the war in Afghanistan was becoming increasingly deadly, the decline in U.S. military investigations produced an incomplete account of the missteps that resulted in civilian harm, according to Afghan officials and former U.S. officials. The lack of information also leaves Afghan families with little recourse to appeal for compensation for their loss.
“One thing is clear: The U.S. has not learned from its past,” said Larry Lewis, a former State Department official and expert on civilian casualties who last worked in Afghanistan in 2017. He said data from inquiries “was key to reducing civilian casualties earlier in the Afghanistan campaign,” and without that data now, “the civilian toll in Afghanistan is surely greater as a result.”
The U.S. military command in Kabul, known as Resolute Support, declined to grant an interview on the subject of civilian casualties and instead responded to some of The Washington Post’s questions submitted by email.
When asked about the drop in investigations, a U.S. military spokesman said the assertion that Resolute Support conducted fewer investigations is “inaccurate.” “Resolute Support investigates every claim of civilian casualties of which we are aware, either through direct reporting, field reporting or reported on social media,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.
When an allegation of a civilian casualty resulting from U.S. military action is raised, Resolute Support said, it conducts an initial review within 72 hours to determine whether it is “credible.” The U.S. military labels an allegation credible if the information reviewed in that 72-hour window shows it is “more likely than not” civilians were harmed by U.S. strikes. If additional evidence is provided to Resolute Support at a later time, some allegations can be reexamined.
Of 563 allegations, only 74 were deemed credible in 2019. (The number of allegations reviewed in 2018 was 223.) Most credible accusations undergo either an assessment called a CCAR or an in-depth investigation.
Resolute Support would not provide the number of CCARs carried out in 2019, saying one was carried out “in most cases.” But it conducted only 14 in-depth investigations in 2019, down from 23 in 2018, according to U.S. military data provided to the United Nations.
An initial assessment is far from a full investigation. It aims to determine what happened but not gather information that could mitigate future harm, as full investigations do.
The drop in the number of investigations came after the team tasked with assessing the accusations was slashed.
Before 2019, a board of about a dozen U.S. civilian and military officials worked with a group of U.S. military investigators called the Civilian Casualty Mitigation Team to assesses allegations. But Resolute Support dissolved the board during the first half of 2019, citing efficiency concerns, according to the U.N. report. A “backlog” of allegations developed as the pace of airstrikes increased, and the board was abolished in an attempt to accelerate the review process, the report said.
The move left only the four people who make up the Civilian Casualty Mitigation Team to process hundreds of allegations of casualties.
Resolute Support declined to respond to questions about why the board was cut. When asked about the drop in in-depth investigations, Resolute Support declined to respond to further written questions and instead provided a statement from Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
“We use every tool at our disposal to avoid civilian casualties, and we spend more time and resources than any military in the history of warfare trying protect civilians,” Miller said, adding that it’s “impossible” to completely avoid civilian casualties.
“Any time you drop a munition, there is a chance there are going to be civilian casualties. We take that responsibility seriously — we investigate every claim of civilian casualties and we take responsibility and attempt to make amends in situations where it appears we have committed harm to civilians,” he said.
In its statement, Resolute Support also pointed to an effort to expand monitoring on social media and local Afghan media in 2019 that brought more allegations of civilian casualties before the Civilian Casualty Mitigation Team.
As the number of in-depth investigations dropped, the gulf grew between U.S. military and U.N. data on civilian casualties.
For 2019, U.N. data on civilian casualties from American bombs is more than five times as high as that collected by the Pentagon. Ninety-eight civilians were killed by U.S. airstrikes in 2019, according to the Pentagon’s annual report submitted to Congress. For the same period, U.N. reporting found 546 civilians were killed in airstrikes by “international military forces.” The United States is the only international military force that carries out airstrikes in Afghanistan.
Resolute Support is less transparent about civilian casualties than other U.S. military commands. In Iraq and Syria, for example, the command overseeing operations against the Islamic State releases monthly updates on civilian casualties. In Africa, the command established a public website where allegations can be logged. In Afghanistan, the U.S. military doesn’t regularly release any information regarding civilian harm.
Civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces have been a powerful rallying cry for anti-American and anti-Afghan government sentiment during the two decades of war. The Taliban capitalizes on such incidents to win support, and as allegations soared over the past two years, so did their use in Taliban propaganda.
In one tweet, the picture of a small child wrapped in a funeral shroud is captioned “martyred by the savage soldier of the enemy.” In another, a report titled “War crimes of the foreign occupying forces and their internal mercenaries” is accompanied by a photograph of bodies wrapped in blankets.
Weakened U.S. accountability mechanisms only gave that propaganda greater traction, undercutting the Afghan government ahead of formal talks with the militants expected to begin in the coming weeks, according to local Afghan officials.
