By Anne Sewell
Anar Gul gestures to the body of her grandchild, who was allegedly killed by a U.S. service member in Panjwai, Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March. 11, 2012. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says a U.S. service member has killed more than a dozen people in a shooting including nine children and three women. (Photo: AP)
Kandahar - According to RT this contradicts the NATO account that insists that only 1 rogue soldier was involved in the slaughter.
An Afghan parliamentary investigation team has spent 2 days collating reports from survivors, witnesses and other inhabitants in the villages where the massacre took place. 16 civilians were killed including 9 children.
Investigator Hamizai Lali told Afghan News: “We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within 1 hour at the same time, and the 16 civilians, most of them children and women, have been killed by the two groups.”
He also said that their investigations led to them to believe 15 to 20 US soldiers had been involved in the killings.
As per an earlier Digital Journal report, according to an Afghan official who viewed the footage, a US surveillance video caught the solder walking up to his base, laying down his weapon and raising his arms in surrender. US authorities showed this footage to the Afghans to prove that only 1 soldier was involved in the shootings.
However, there are apparently a further 2 or 3 hours of video footage covering the time of the attack and Afghan investigators are still trying to get this footage from the US military.
Sayed Ishaq Gillani, the head of the Afghan parliamentary investigation, told the BBC that witnesses report seeing helicopters dropping chaff during the attack, a measure used to hide targets from ground attack.
He also added that the locals suspect that the massacre was in revenge for attacks carried out last week on U.S. forces that left several soldiers injured.
As reported by Digital Journal, the U.S. military has detained 1 soldier in connection with the massacre and he has been transferred to Kuwait. Currently there is an Afghan outcry over this, insisting that he should have a public trial in Afghanistan.
An investigation is being carried out by the U.S. Authorities into the motives behind the attack. The soldier is believed to have had alcohol problems and may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The U.S authorities insist that the soldier's trial must be dealt with by the US legal system.
The investigations by the Afghan parliamentary team are ongoing.