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Secret Afghan death squads are acting on the orders of foreign spies and killing civilians inside Afghanistan with impunity, a senior UN envoy has claimed.
Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on illegal killings, said "foreign intelligence agencies" had used illegal groups of heavily armed Afghans in
raids against suspected insurgents. He said the attacks were beyond the legitimate military chains of command and they were "completely unacceptable" and "outside the law".
At the end of a 12-day fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, Alston said: "There have been a large number of raids for which no state or military appears to take responsibility. I have spoken with a large number of people in relation to the operation of foreign intelligence units. I don't want to name them but they are at the most senior level of the relevant places. These forces operate with what appears to be impunity."
Alston said he knew of at least three recent raids. In one, two brothers were killed by troops operating out of an American Special Forces base in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. Afghan government officials admitted neither was linked to the Taliban, but no army has claimed responsibility for the raid.
Another group, known as Shaheen, operated out of Nangahar, in eastern Afghanistan, where US forces were in charge, Alston said. "Essentially, they are companies of Afghans but with a handful, at most, of international people directing them. I'm not aware that they fall under any command."
In Helmand, where most of Britain's 7800 troops are based, Special Forces were accused of slitting a man's throat in a botched night raid last year. Security sources now claim the operation was mounted by a secret spy unit.
Alston has issued a preliminary report in which he refused to name the spies behind the secret units, or their nationality, but most of the provinces he identified where these raids have been mounted fall under American command. He also refused to rule out the possibility that raids may have been made in British-patrolled Helmand.
A Western official said the secret units were still known as Campaign Forces, from the time when American Special Forces and CIA spies recruited Afghan troops to help overthrow the Taliban during the US-led invasion in 2001. "The brightest, smartest guys in these militias were kept on," the official said. "They were trained and re-armed and they are still being used."
A British embassy spokesman in Kabul said officials were "examining the [expert's] report closely". But they refused to comment on whether MI6 was involved.
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