[These differing assessments are at the core of the dueling findings. While the American military sees economic engines that contribute to the Taliban’s war effort as legally legitimate targets, the United Nations considered the sites hit on May 5 to be outside that categorization.]
By
Thomas Gibbons-Neff
 |
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American
military personnel in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, last month.
Credit
Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
|
KABUL,
Afghanistan — At least 30
civilians were killed by American airstrikes that targeted drug labs in western
Afghanistan this spring, according to a United Nations report released on
Wednesday, a figure that the United States-led mission in the country quickly
disputed.
The strikes, on May 5, targeted more than 60
sites in Farah Province and neighboring Nimruz Province, the United Nations
report said. As of last month, the United Nations Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan had verified that 39 civilians were either wounded or killed in the
strikes. Seventeen of those were working in the drug labs, which were primarily
producing methamphetamine.
A statement from the American-led mission in
Afghanistan disagreed with nearly all of the report, citing its “reliance on
sources with conflicted motives” and the decision to call those killed in the
bombings civilians instead of insurgents.
The dispute sheds light on America’s current
war methods — relying heavily on overhead surveillance, air support and local
forces to select and attack targets — and the sometimes contentious definitions
by which the United States military identifies combatants on an increasingly
murky battlefield.
In the case of the May 5 strikes, the United
States military said in its statement that its own “exhaustive and
comprehensive review” had determined that the labs were producing revenue for
the Taliban, and that the people working in them were Taliban fighters and
“lawful military targets.”
It said the timing of the strikes was chosen
to avoid civilian casualties, but the United Nations report disputed this. Its
report said that one of the targeted sets of facilities, in the Bakwa district
of Farah Province, “were not controlled and operated exclusively by the
Taliban, but rather they were owned and operated by criminal groups with
connections to international drug trafficking networks.”
These differing assessments are at the core
of the dueling findings. While the American military sees economic engines that
contribute to the Taliban’s war effort as legally legitimate targets, the
United Nations considered the sites hit on May 5 to be outside that
categorization.
The people inside the labs were not
“performing combat functions,” the United Nations report said, and “while some
of the sites may have been associated with illicit activity, they did not meet
the definition of legitimate military objectives under international law.”
A United States defense official, speaking on
the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said revenue from
the targeted drug labs was directly funding Taliban Red Units, a well-trained
branch of the insurgent group that is responsible for some of its more deadly
attacks.
After the strikes, the United States
military, primarily using overhead surveillance, determined that no civilians
were injured or killed. In June, the United Nations sent a fact-finding mission
to several of the sites and conducted interviews with 21 local people,
according to its report.
With decreasing numbers of American troops
deployed in combat zones, a lack of people on the ground to assess the damage
caused by airstrikes has become a staple of United States combat operations in
recent years. In April, the military command in Africa determined that civilians
had been killed in an airstrike in Somalia only after a rights group and
pressure from lawmakers prompted a review.
And the fight against the Islamic State has
been rife with civilian casualty allegations after extensive American bombing
campaigns in cities such as Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.
The United States military has not targeted
any other methamphetamine labs after the May strikes, the defense official
said. A United Nations report released in June said that 717 civilians were
killed by American and Afghan government forces in the first six months of this
year.
The United States has spent more than $8
billion on anti-narcotics operations in Afghanistan, according to the United
States special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. Officials have
shifted antidrug strategies several times over the course of the long war. The
latest iteration, which began in 2017 and primarily targeted opium-producing facilities, was called off
late last year.
And while opium poppy growth has long been a
financial foundation for the Taliban, methamphetamines have quietly appeared
across Afghanistan in increasing quantities. In September last year, the Afghan
counternarcotics police seized more than nine metric tons of chemicals that
could be used to make the drug.
