The Kandahar massacre, also called the Panjwai massacre,Shah, Taimoor, "Days Of Horror And Grief: Reporting The Panjwai Massacre", New York Times, 9 November 2012 was a mass murder that occurred in the early hours of 11 March 2012, when United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales murdered 16 Afghan civilians and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Nine of his victims were children, and 11 of the dead were from the same family. Some of the corpses were partially burned. Bales was taken into custody later that morning when he told authorities, "I did it".
The U.S. and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) authorities apologized for the deaths. Afghan authorities condemned the act, describing it as "intentional murder". The National Assembly of Afghanistan passed a resolution demanding a public trial in Afghanistan. Still, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the soldier would be tried under U.S. military law. Bales pleaded guilty on 5 June 2013 to 16 counts of premeditated murder in exchange for the prosecution not seeking a death sentence. At the time of the plea, he said he did not know why he committed the murders. On 23 August 2013, Bales was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
United States authorities concluded that the killings were the act of a single individual. On 15 March 2012, an Afghan parliamentary probe team consisting of several members of the National Assembly of Afghanistan had speculated that up to 20 U.S. soldiers were involved in the killings. The team later said they could not confirm claims that multiple soldiers participated in the massacre.
Background
"Surge" in southern Afghanistan
Panjwai is the birthplace of the Taliban movement and has traditionally been a stronghold of the Taliban. It has been an area of heavy fighting and was the focus of a military surge in 2010, which brought a more than two-fold increase in airstrikes, night raids into Afghan homes, insurgent casualties, and a six-fold increase in special forces operations throughout Afghanistan.
Fighting in Panjwai and adjacent Zhari, Arghandab, and Kandahar districts was particularly intense. The conflict between the civilian population and U.S. forces was exacerbated by the wholesale destruction of some villages by U.S. forces, mass arrests,Porter, Gareth: "Kandahar gains come with 'brutal' tactics". Asia Times, 21 December 2010. murder of civilians by rogue units, and high casualties from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).Norland, Rod and Taimoor Shah: "NATO is Razing Booby-Trapped Afghan Homes" . The New York Times, 16 November 2010. One of the families targeted in the Kandahar massacre returned to the area in 2011 after being displaced by the surge. Fearing the Taliban but encouraged by the U.S. government, the Army, and the Afghan government, they settled near the U.S. military base because they thought it would be a safe place to live.
Approximately three weeks before the incidents, Afghan–U.S. relations were strained by an incident where copies of the Quran were burnt at the Bagram Air Base. A couple of months before the shootings, U.S. Marines were videorecorded urinating on dead Taliban fighters.
Allegations of issues at Fort Lewis The shooter, Robert Bales, was based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM). The primary medical treatment facility at the base, Madigan Army Medical Center, has come under investigation for downgrading diagnoses of soldiers with PTSD to lesser ailments. Military support groups around the base have alleged that base commanders did not give returning troops sufficient time to recover before sending them on further deployments and that the base's medical unit was understaffed and overwhelmed by the numbers of returning veterans with deployment-related physical and psychological trauma.Yardley, William; Kovaleski, Serge F.; and James Dao, "Home Base of Accused Soldier Has Faced Scrutiny", New York Times, 14 March 2012.
Soldiers from the base have been linked to other atrocities and crimes. The 2010 Maywand District murders involved JBLM-based soldiers. Also in 2010, a recently discharged AWOL soldier from JBLM shot a police officer in Salt Lake City.Murphy, Kim, "Soldier Held in Killings Is From A Troubled Base", Los Angeles Times, 13 March 2012, p. 1. In April 2011, a JBLM soldier killed his wife and 5-year-old son before killing himself. In January 2012, a JBLM soldier murdered a Mount Rainier National Park ranger. In two separate incidents, unrelated JBLM soldiers have been charged with waterboarding their children.
Jorge Gonzalez, executive director of a veterans resource center near Fort Lewis, said that the Kandahar killings offer more proof that the base was dysfunctional: "This was not a rogue soldier. JBLM is a rogue base, with a severe leadership problem", he said in a statement. Base officials responded, saying that the crimes committed by its soldiers were isolated events which do not "reflect on the work and dedication of all service members." Robert H. Scales, a retired U.S. Army major general and former commandant of the Army War College, suggested that the major factor in the shootings was the overuse of infantry personnel in the last ten years for close combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
8 March roadside bombing Residents of Mokhoyan, a village about 500 metres east of Camp Belamby, stated that a bomb had exploded in their vicinity on 8 March, destroying an armored vehicle and wounding several U.S. soldiers. They recounted that U.S. soldiers afterwards lined many of the male villagers against a wall, threatening to "get revenge for this incident by killing at least 20 of your people", and threatening that "you and your children will pay for this". One Mokhoyan resident told The Associated Press "It looked like they were going to shoot us, and I was very afraid." U.S. officials from The Pentagon declared that they had "no evidence" that villagers had been lined up against a wall and threatened in Mokhoyan. U.S. officials refused to confirm or deny that U.S. soldiers were wounded outside the village on 8 March.
Bales' lawyer, John Henry Browne, later stated that his client was upset because a fellow soldier had lost a leg in an explosion on 9 March. It is unclear whether the bombing cited by Browne was the same as the one described by the villagers.
Incident
Killings CasualtiesAfghan Farmer Recounts Being Told Americans Killed Family, Bloomberg News (23 March 2012)Killed Mohamed Dawood (son of Abdullah) Khudaydad (son of Mohamed Juma) Nazar Mohamed Payendo Robeena Shatarina (daughter of Sultan Mohamed) Zahra (daughter of Abdul Hamid) Nazia (daughter of Dost Mohamed) Masooma (daughter of Mohamed Wazir) Farida (daughter of Mohamed Wazir) Palwasha (daughter of Mohamed Wazir) Nabia (daughter of Mohamed Wazir) Esmatullah, age 16 (son of Mohamed Wazir) Faizullah, age 9 (son of Mohamed Wazir) Essa Mohamed (son of Mohamed Hussain) Akhtar Mohamed (son of Murrad Ali)
Wounded Haji Mohamed Naim (son of Haji Sakhawat) Mohamed Sediq (son of Mohamed Naim) Parween Rafiullah Zardana Zulheja
According to official reports, Bales left combat outpost Camp Belamby at 3:00 a.m. local time wearing night vision goggles. Bales was wearing traditional Afghan clothing over his ACU.Afghan villagers recount weekend shooting rampage , MSNBC (13 March 2012) He wore no body armor.
According to government officials with knowledge of the investigation, the killings were carried out in two phases, with Bales returning to base in between. An Afghan guard reported a soldier returning to base at 1:30 am, and another guard reported a soldier leaving at 2:30 am. Bales is believed to have first gone to Alkozai, about north of Camp Belambay, then to Najiban (called Balandi in earlier reports), located south of the base.Murphy, Kim and Ned Parker, "Afghan Massacre A Hard Case For Army", Los Angeles Times, 5 November 2012, p. 1 Four people were killed and six wounded in Alkozai, and twelve people were killed in Najiban. U.S. sentries at the base heard gunshots in Alkozai but did not take action besides attempting to view Alkozai from their post inside the base.Murphy, Kim, "U.S. Soldiers Heard Gunfire But Didn't Act", Los Angeles Times, 7 November 2012, p.21 Until 22 March, U.S. authorities recognized sixteen people killed, including nine children, four men, and three women. On 22 March that number was revised to seventeen, but later reduced back to sixteen. It was initially reported that five others were injured, and that number was eventually increased to six.
Four members of the same family were killed in Alkozai. According to a 16-year-old boy who was shot in the leg, Bales woke up his family members before shooting them. Another witness said she saw the man drag a woman out of her house and repeatedly hit her head against a wall.
The first victim in Najiban appears to have been Mohammad Dawood. According to Dawood's brother, Bales shot Dawood in the head but spared Dawood's wife and six children after the wife screamed at him.Levinson, Charles, "Afghan Father Copes With Aftermath", Wall Street Journal, 23 March 2012, p. 7.
Eleven members of Abdul Samad's family were killed in a house in Najiban village, including his wife, four girls between the ages of two and six, four boys between eight and twelve, and two other relatives. According to a witness, "he dragged the boys by their hair and shot them in the mouth". At least three of the child victims were killed by a single shot to the head of each. Their bodies were then set on fire. Another civilian, Mohammad Dawoud, age 55, was then killed in another village house. Witnesses reported that Bales was wearing a headlamp and/or a spotlight attached to his weapon.Johnson, Kirk, "At Soldier's Hearing, Grisly Descriptions of Chaos And Horror", New York Times, 11 November 2012, p. 1Murphy, Kim, "Young Afghan Victims Testify About Massacre", Los Angeles Times, 12 November 2012, p. 10
Bales burned some of the victims' bodies. Witnesses said the eleven corpses from one family were shot in the head, stabbed, gathered into one room, and set on fire. A pile of ashes was found on the floor of one victims' house; at least one child's body was found partially charred. A reporter for The New York Times inspected the children's bodies taken to a nearby American military base and reported seeing burns on some of the legs and heads.
Surrender and confession Following the events at Alkozai and Balandi, Bales handed himself over into ISAF custody. Afghan forces spotted him leaving his outpost before the killings and U.S. commanders on base assembled their troops for a head count when it was discovered that a soldier was missing. A patrol was dispatched to find the missing soldier but did not find him before he returned to base after the killings. He was reportedly taken into custody without incident. No military operations were being conducted in the area at the time of the shootings.
The surveillance video from the base reportedly shows "the soldier walking up to his base covered in a traditional Afghan shawl. The soldier removes the shawl and lays his weapon on the ground, then raises his arms in surrender." The video has not been released to the public.
U.S. investigators suspect Bales may have departed the base before midnight, committed the murders in Alkozai, then returned to the base around 1:30 a.m. Bales may have then departed the base at 2:30 a.m. and committed the murders in Najiban. Apparently, the second departure caused the alert and the commencement of the patrol to locate the missing soldier.Burns, Robert, "Officials: Villagers Killed in Two Separate Attacks", Washington Post, 25 March 2012, p. 13.