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http://www.fayobserver.com:80/article?id=270702
Military hearing may test war laws
By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer
There is no question that Master Sgt. Troy Anderson shot Nawab Buntangyar in front of his compound near the Afghan-Pakistani border.
There also is no debate that Nawab was known to be a “bad guy” — an enemy who helped arm suicide bombers and who was on a list of the most dangerous insurgent leaders in Afghanistan.
The question facing an Army investigator at Fort Bragg in the coming weeks is whether Anderson and his commander, Capt. Dave Staffel, were acting within the rules of engagement when they killed Nawad.
But to many Special Forces soldiers, it appears that the rules of engagement themselves are going on trial at a time when leaders are trying to shift the role of Green Berets in Afghanistan.
Anderson and Staffel face an Article 32 hearing to decide whether they will be court-martialed on murder charges. The hearing is similar to a civilian grand jury investigation: The purpose isn’t to decide guilt, just whether there’s enough evidence to hold a trial.
No hearing date has been set.
Staffel and Anderson, like most veteran Special Forces soldiers, have deployed to Afghanistan several times since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2002. The Fort Bragg-based Green Berets have been at the front of the continuing effort to suppress the Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency.
That’s what the Special Forces A-team led by Staffel was doing in Paktia province on the border with Pakistan in October 2006, when Nawad was killed.
Mark Waple, Staffel’s Fayetteville-based lawyer, said the area was becoming more dangerous. The soldiers were seeing more roadside bombs and ambushes. A delivery truck taking food to the team’s firebase was attacked.
They were sure one of the main culprits was Nawab, Waple said.
The Afghan was training and arming suicide bombers and teaching insurgents how to build and deploy roadside bombs, according to Special Forces sources. Days before the team found him, their sources said he’d bragged that he planned to kill coalition forces in a suicide bombing campaign.
In October, Staffel and Anderson were leading an advance team of Afghan soldiers ahead of a convoy delivering medical supplies and care to a village near their firebase. They were flagged down by an Afghan, according to descriptions of the incident from Waple and a Special Forces source.
The man wanted to give them Nawab. The insurgent leader was in the village of Ster Kalay, the man told the Americans.
While Staffel provided cover, Anderson led a small contingent of Afghan soldiers and police and at least one other Special Forces soldier up to what was identified as Nawad’s compound.
The Afghan soldiers knocked on the door of the compound, and Nawab came out.
Anderson and the others kept their distance. They were afraid that Nawab was wired in an explosive vest and concerned that either he or one of his bodyguards would attack.
“Nawab was believed to be extremely dangerous to coalition forces,” Waple said.
Through an interpreter, Anderson asked Nawab his name twice. He checked his physical description against a sheet the soldiers keep that describes each person on the vetted list of insurgents that came from the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan. On the list were the highest-priority targets for Special Forces soldiers. Some of the soldiers called it the kill-or-capture list.
Confident that Nawab was the man on the list, Anderson raised his rifle and killed him with one shot.
The circumstances of Nawab’s death apparently raised questions right away with the soldiers’ superiors.
The Army investigated the shooting twice.
An internal investigation was completed first, followed by a probe by the Army Criminal Investigations Command, still known as CID.
Waple was told that the CID investigation cleared both Special Forces soldiers.
But in June, the overall command over special operations in the region recommended charges of premeditated murder against Staffel and Anderson.
Back at Fort Bragg, the headquarters for Special Forces is not commenting on the case to avoid compromising it. But in a response to questions, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Special Forces Command did offer some insight on how its soldiers operate in Afghanistan.
Special Forces soldiers work in small teams far from their in-country commanders, said Maj. Clarence Counts. They receive guidance, but individual team leaders and sergeants are taught to use their initiative in figuring out how to do what needs to be done.
According to other Special Forces soldiers — who asked that their names not be used — Staffel and Anderson correctly assessed what needed to be done and acted appropriately under the rules of engagement they were supposed to be following.
Nawab’s presence on the target list was key, one soldier who was in Afghanistan at the same time said.
Who was on the list “was never up to us,” he said. The list always came from the task force level or higher. “We always thought if they were vetted, they were fair game. (Special Forces teams) planned missions off the vetted list.”
A senior Special Forces soldier also in Afghanistan in 2006 said he believes Staffel and Anderson acted correctly when they encountered Nawad, who, because of his ties to suicide bombers, posed a risk even when it appeared he was just answering questions. He said Staffel and Anderson obviously felt threatened.
“This was the definition of a chance encounter,” he said. “We’re dealing with suicide bombers every day now. If you feel you’re in danger, deadly force is authorized.”
But Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch, said soldiers can’t just label someone a combatant and shoot him.
“Though it is difficult to second-guess soldiers operating in life-and-death situations, this appears on the surface to be a violation of the laws of war,” he said. “The Geneva Conventions are clear — you can only kill a combatant, and a combatant has to be armed.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch is one of the chief civilian oversight groups monitoring U.S. military conduct in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Garlasco is a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
He said the rules of engagement must be changed if a soldier is allowed to use force just because he feels he is in danger.
“If they are going to act like everyone in Afghanistan may be wearing a suicide vest and therefore is a combatant, the U.S. might as well just kill everyone because the definition of combatant becomes so subjective as to be meaningless,” Garlasco said.
Some soldiers, meanwhile, worry that it is the rules of engagement — the rules that tell them what they can and can’t do — that will have been rendered meaningless if Anderson and Staffel are prosecuted.
They believe the shooting of Nawad fit those rules as they existed in October 2006, and second-guessing now undermines the ability of Special Forces soldiers to do their jobs.
“It stymies everything — creativity, calculated risk-taking, all of the latitude and creativity that you must use in Afghanistan,” said a former Special Forces commander who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Without that, we’re doomed to do the same old stuff. It is a recipe for defeat.”
He said the Article 32 is a classic example of “leadership by penmanship.” The top commanders of Special Forces, he said, may pay lip service to creative thinking but they’ve made their careers by being cautious.
“They color inside the lines,” he said. “They grew up in a box factory.”
Maj. Counts, the Special Forces spokesman, said the Article 32 investigation is to determine the facts of the case and should not have any adverse effect on future operations.
“Honest people can have differing observations from their perspective of view,” Counts said. “The purpose of the Article 32 is to understand all points of view.”
Part of the rank-and-file anger over the Nawad case could be related to a difference with commanders over what Special Forces soldiers should be doing in Afghanistan. Soldiers on the ground say that they should be doing what Anderson and Staffel were doing: going after the bad guys.
But late last year, the special operations task force in Afghanistan started defining a new role.
The Fayetteville Observer obtained a memorandum from special operations sources dated Nov. 18, 2006 — just over a month after Nawad’s death. The memo ordered Special Forces teams to suspend operations for a day.
Lt. Col. Samuel Ashley, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group, wrote in the memo that he wanted Afghan security forces to take the lead in planning and executing operations.
Ashley cautioned his men that the list of vetted targets was “not an open license to use any and all tactics to kill an individual.”
There was no indication in the memo that it was in response to the Nawad case.
Last week, officials with the Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg said the primary job for Special Forces in Afghanistan is foreign internal defense — essentially the mission outlined in the memo.
“Special Forces always tries to work itself out of a job,” Counts said. “They do this by training and working with the host nation forces, molding them into a professional Army, one that is tactically proficient as well as one that understands and practices human rights.”
Staff writer Kevin Maurer can be reached at maurerk@fayobserver.com or 486-3587.
Military hearing may test war laws
By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer
There is no question that Master Sgt. Troy Anderson shot Nawab Buntangyar in front of his compound near the Afghan-Pakistani border.
There also is no debate that Nawab was known to be a “bad guy” — an enemy who helped arm suicide bombers and who was on a list of the most dangerous insurgent leaders in Afghanistan.
The question facing an Army investigator at Fort Bragg in the coming weeks is whether Anderson and his commander, Capt. Dave Staffel, were acting within the rules of engagement when they killed Nawad.
But to many Special Forces soldiers, it appears that the rules of engagement themselves are going on trial at a time when leaders are trying to shift the role of Green Berets in Afghanistan.
Anderson and Staffel face an Article 32 hearing to decide whether they will be court-martialed on murder charges. The hearing is similar to a civilian grand jury investigation: The purpose isn’t to decide guilt, just whether there’s enough evidence to hold a trial.
No hearing date has been set.
Staffel and Anderson, like most veteran Special Forces soldiers, have deployed to Afghanistan several times since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2002. The Fort Bragg-based Green Berets have been at the front of the continuing effort to suppress the Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency.
That’s what the Special Forces A-team led by Staffel was doing in Paktia province on the border with Pakistan in October 2006, when Nawad was killed.
Mark Waple, Staffel’s Fayetteville-based lawyer, said the area was becoming more dangerous. The soldiers were seeing more roadside bombs and ambushes. A delivery truck taking food to the team’s firebase was attacked.
They were sure one of the main culprits was Nawab, Waple said.
The Afghan was training and arming suicide bombers and teaching insurgents how to build and deploy roadside bombs, according to Special Forces sources. Days before the team found him, their sources said he’d bragged that he planned to kill coalition forces in a suicide bombing campaign.
In October, Staffel and Anderson were leading an advance team of Afghan soldiers ahead of a convoy delivering medical supplies and care to a village near their firebase. They were flagged down by an Afghan, according to descriptions of the incident from Waple and a Special Forces source.
The man wanted to give them Nawab. The insurgent leader was in the village of Ster Kalay, the man told the Americans.
While Staffel provided cover, Anderson led a small contingent of Afghan soldiers and police and at least one other Special Forces soldier up to what was identified as Nawad’s compound.
The Afghan soldiers knocked on the door of the compound, and Nawab came out.
Anderson and the others kept their distance. They were afraid that Nawab was wired in an explosive vest and concerned that either he or one of his bodyguards would attack.
“Nawab was believed to be extremely dangerous to coalition forces,” Waple said.
Through an interpreter, Anderson asked Nawab his name twice. He checked his physical description against a sheet the soldiers keep that describes each person on the vetted list of insurgents that came from the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan. On the list were the highest-priority targets for Special Forces soldiers. Some of the soldiers called it the kill-or-capture list.
Confident that Nawab was the man on the list, Anderson raised his rifle and killed him with one shot.
The circumstances of Nawab’s death apparently raised questions right away with the soldiers’ superiors.
The Army investigated the shooting twice.
An internal investigation was completed first, followed by a probe by the Army Criminal Investigations Command, still known as CID.
Waple was told that the CID investigation cleared both Special Forces soldiers.
But in June, the overall command over special operations in the region recommended charges of premeditated murder against Staffel and Anderson.
Back at Fort Bragg, the headquarters for Special Forces is not commenting on the case to avoid compromising it. But in a response to questions, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Special Forces Command did offer some insight on how its soldiers operate in Afghanistan.
Special Forces soldiers work in small teams far from their in-country commanders, said Maj. Clarence Counts. They receive guidance, but individual team leaders and sergeants are taught to use their initiative in figuring out how to do what needs to be done.
According to other Special Forces soldiers — who asked that their names not be used — Staffel and Anderson correctly assessed what needed to be done and acted appropriately under the rules of engagement they were supposed to be following.
Nawab’s presence on the target list was key, one soldier who was in Afghanistan at the same time said.
Who was on the list “was never up to us,” he said. The list always came from the task force level or higher. “We always thought if they were vetted, they were fair game. (Special Forces teams) planned missions off the vetted list.”
A senior Special Forces soldier also in Afghanistan in 2006 said he believes Staffel and Anderson acted correctly when they encountered Nawad, who, because of his ties to suicide bombers, posed a risk even when it appeared he was just answering questions. He said Staffel and Anderson obviously felt threatened.
“This was the definition of a chance encounter,” he said. “We’re dealing with suicide bombers every day now. If you feel you’re in danger, deadly force is authorized.”
But Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch, said soldiers can’t just label someone a combatant and shoot him.
“Though it is difficult to second-guess soldiers operating in life-and-death situations, this appears on the surface to be a violation of the laws of war,” he said. “The Geneva Conventions are clear — you can only kill a combatant, and a combatant has to be armed.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch is one of the chief civilian oversight groups monitoring U.S. military conduct in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Garlasco is a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
He said the rules of engagement must be changed if a soldier is allowed to use force just because he feels he is in danger.
“If they are going to act like everyone in Afghanistan may be wearing a suicide vest and therefore is a combatant, the U.S. might as well just kill everyone because the definition of combatant becomes so subjective as to be meaningless,” Garlasco said.
Some soldiers, meanwhile, worry that it is the rules of engagement — the rules that tell them what they can and can’t do — that will have been rendered meaningless if Anderson and Staffel are prosecuted.
They believe the shooting of Nawad fit those rules as they existed in October 2006, and second-guessing now undermines the ability of Special Forces soldiers to do their jobs.
“It stymies everything — creativity, calculated risk-taking, all of the latitude and creativity that you must use in Afghanistan,” said a former Special Forces commander who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Without that, we’re doomed to do the same old stuff. It is a recipe for defeat.”
He said the Article 32 is a classic example of “leadership by penmanship.” The top commanders of Special Forces, he said, may pay lip service to creative thinking but they’ve made their careers by being cautious.
“They color inside the lines,” he said. “They grew up in a box factory.”
Maj. Counts, the Special Forces spokesman, said the Article 32 investigation is to determine the facts of the case and should not have any adverse effect on future operations.
“Honest people can have differing observations from their perspective of view,” Counts said. “The purpose of the Article 32 is to understand all points of view.”
Part of the rank-and-file anger over the Nawad case could be related to a difference with commanders over what Special Forces soldiers should be doing in Afghanistan. Soldiers on the ground say that they should be doing what Anderson and Staffel were doing: going after the bad guys.
But late last year, the special operations task force in Afghanistan started defining a new role.
The Fayetteville Observer obtained a memorandum from special operations sources dated Nov. 18, 2006 — just over a month after Nawad’s death. The memo ordered Special Forces teams to suspend operations for a day.
Lt. Col. Samuel Ashley, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group, wrote in the memo that he wanted Afghan security forces to take the lead in planning and executing operations.
Ashley cautioned his men that the list of vetted targets was “not an open license to use any and all tactics to kill an individual.”
There was no indication in the memo that it was in response to the Nawad case.
Last week, officials with the Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg said the primary job for Special Forces in Afghanistan is foreign internal defense — essentially the mission outlined in the memo.
“Special Forces always tries to work itself out of a job,” Counts said. “They do this by training and working with the host nation forces, molding them into a professional Army, one that is tactically proficient as well as one that understands and practices human rights.”
Staff writer Kevin Maurer can be reached at maurerk@fayobserver.com or 486-3587.
