In the spring<\/span> of 2023, on a partly sunny day where the temperature flirted with 70 degrees, an Army veteran of the Afghanistan War walked into the unique Prairie-style<\/a> police headquarters in Banning, California. In a private room<\/a> in the detective bureau, the former specialist, who served with the storied 82nd Airborne Division, sat down with a special agent from the Army\u2019s Criminal Investigation Division \u2014 better known as CID \u2014 to make a confession.<\/p>\n The veteran had served with roughly 20 mortarmen and scouts from a platoon in the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to Combat Outpost Ware in Afghanistan\u2019s Arghandab River Valley in 2010. A lush land of grape groves and pomegranate orchards, towering sunflowers and marijuana plants, the Arghandab was crisscrossed by canals and was a flashpoint in Kandahar Province, the spiritual homeland of Afghanistan\u2019s once and future rulers, the Taliban.\u00a0<\/p>\n The soldiers from the 82nd Airborne played a cat-and-mouse game with the Taliban. America\u2019s official policy was counterinsurgency<\/a>, or COIN: a re-tread of a failed strategy of the Vietnam War that promised a kinder, gentler brand of warfare aimed at winning Afghan hearts and minds. But in the Arghandab Valley, the COIN of the realm was kinetic.<\/p>\n The Taliban seeded the orchards with improvised explosive devices set off by a foot on a pressure plate, a boot on a tripwire, or Taliban hands gripping a remote control. The Americans countered with overwhelming firepower: attack helicopters<\/a>, armored gun trucks, and infantrymen toting M4 carbines. It was a \u201crough time for the unit,\u201d another veteran of the platoon remembered. They saw a great deal of \u201ccontact,\u201d engaging the Taliban more times than another unit member could recall.<\/p>\n But the former mortarman in Banning had come to talk about one particular incident that, more than a decade later, he could not forget.<\/p>\n The CID agent gave the veteran a \u201ccleansing waiver of rights\u201d to read and sign. It advised the veteran that he had the right to remain silent, that any statement he made could be used against him at trial, and that he was providing testimony \u201cfreely and voluntarily.\u201d\u00a0The veteran waived his rights and signed the document on March 28, 2023 at 1:31 p.m. He acknowledged, according to exclusive criminal investigation documents obtained by The Intercept, that he killed an unarmed man and wounded a woman. More than that, he said that he \u201cneeded to be held accountable for his actions.\u201d He told CID that he had \u201ccommitted a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n Twenty-five years ago,<\/span> in the wake of the 9\/11 attacks, an angry America went to war in Afghanistan. The conflict would become, by some counts, the longest in U.S. history, stretching across four presidential administrations. It ended where it started<\/a>, with the Taliban in control of the country after a crushing 2021 defeat for the U.S. and the Afghan allies it propped up for two decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n The U.S. lost around 2,400 troops in Afghanistan at a staggering cost of around $2.3 trillion. Afghans suffered far worse. In October 2001, President George W. Bush announced<\/a> that \u201cthe oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America.\u201d But from almost the opening American salvo, they began dying at U.S. hands.<\/p>\n During just the first five months of the conflict, there were no fewer than 136 media reports of U.S. attacks that killed between 1,200 and 3,155 civilians<\/a>. Year after year, U.S. and coalition airstrikes killed Afghans \u2013 sometimes scores of civilians, sometimes hundreds<\/a>. The deaths continued to the war\u2019s final moments when an August 2021 drone strike<\/a> targeting a suspected terrorist in the country\u2019s capital, Kabul, instead killed 10 civilians<\/a>, seven of them children<\/a>.\u00a0More than 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war, according to Brown University\u2019s Costs of War project<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the carnage of the American air war garnered the biggest headlines, Afghans were also gunned down, again and again, by U.S. ground troops. Following a 2007 ambush, Marines killed 19 civilians<\/a> and wounded 50. An initial investigation found the Marines used excessive force when they killed civilians after a suicide bombing. Later, the Americans were recast<\/a> as victims<\/a>. In 2010, a \u201ckill team\u201d from the Army\u2019s 5th Stryker Brigade slew at least three civilians<\/a> over four months and mutilated the dead for war trophies<\/a>. Eleven of the 12 soldiers charged were convicted of crimes, but most were released from prison by the mid-2010s. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales massacred 16 Afghan civilians<\/a> in 2012. A Special Forces A-Team was accused of killing close to 20 civilians<\/a> in 2012 and 2013. The remains of 10 victims were later found buried outside their base. A U.S. investigation exonerated the Americans of any wrongdoing. Only one man was punished: Zikria Kandahari<\/a>, the unit\u2019s Afghan interpreter.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pete Hegseth, now the self-styled Secretary of War, served with the Army National Guard in Afghanistan during that era. In Trump\u2019s first term, when he was a Fox News personality, Hegseth lobbied on behalf<\/a> of three men who were convicted or facing charges related to war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump intervened in all three cases, granting two pardons<\/a> and reversing a demotion<\/a>.<\/p>\n During his confirmation hearing<\/a> last year, Hegseth complained that \u201crestrictive\u201d rules of engagement had \u201cdifficult to actually do your job on the battlefield,\u201d repeatedly recalling his own service. \u201cI was the senior counter-insurgency instructor in Afghanistan. My job was to understand how the Taliban and Al Qaeda operated,\u201d he explained<\/a>. \u201cThey knew our rules of engagement, and when they were more restrictive, they took advantage of them.\u201d He continued: \u201cWe don\u2019t need burdensome rules of engagement that make it impossible for us to win these wars.\u201d<\/p>\n But what the veteran in Banning described to CID agents was anything but burdensome.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In April or May<\/span> \u2014 he couldn\u2019t recall which \u2014 of 2010, that veteran said he was carrying an M4 carbine as his unit moved about 3 kilometers into the Arghandab and occupied an abandoned building at the edge of a village. When the Americans were attacked, they returned fire, killing a couple Taliban members.<\/p>\n The unit readied themselves, expecting the Taliban to regroup and mount another assault. The Americans intercepted a radio transmission. A translator told them that a single male militant on a motorcycle, transporting rocket-propelled grenades, was headed toward them, according to the documents. The unit\u2019s chain of command authorized the use of force.<\/p>\n When a motorcycle rider came into view, a sniper took aim and fired off one round. He missed.<\/p>\n The respite for the motorcycle man was short-lived, however. About 500 feet away, close to 20 Americans raised their rifles.<\/p>\n An M4 carbine<\/a> \u2014 a magazine-fed, gas-operated, air-cooled, shoulder-fired weapon \u2014 shoots lightweight bullets at extremely high speeds. In the spring of 2010, M855<\/a> 5.56-mm bullets<\/a> were de rigueur for U.S. forces. Fast with low mass, the rounds produce a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. When they slam into a human body, that energy is transmitted to the soft tissue of the victim creating a \u201cwound channel\u201d that causes massive blood loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Banning mortarman fired off one round. Others from the unit opened up, too.<\/p>\n The motorcycle man never reached his destination. If someone was waiting for him to arrive on that spring day in 2010, they still are.<\/p>\n The Banning veteran and others walked up to the Afghan man and \u201cwitnessed a military aged male deceased with multiple gunshot wounds to the face and other areas of his body,\u201d wrote the CID special agent, transcribing the mortarman\u2019s testimony. \u201cNo RPG\u2019s were present.\u201d<\/p>\n Nobody knew how many rounds hit him, but the damage to the Afghan man\u2019s body was so extensive that he was \u201cunidentifiable,\u201d according to another witness. The mutilation was so devastating that the Americans were unable to even collect his \u201cbiometrics\u201d: fingerprints, iris scans, facial images.<\/p>\n The dead man, said the veteran, wasn\u2019t alone. There was a wounded woman, too. He told the CID agent that the \u201cwoman was crawling on the ground.\u201d\u00a0There may also have been a baby or child present as well \u2014 CID\u2019s redactions make it impossible to know for certain.<\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n After the veteran<\/span> made his confession, in late March 2023, Army criminal investigators started consulting U.S. sources. Despite detailed unit records for more than 100 notable incidents in April and May 2010, an Army historian could locate none for the killing of the motorcycle man.<\/p>\n When CID began interviewing unit members, the company commander \u2014 by then a lieutenant colonel \u2014 said the incident did not sound familiar to him. The unit\u2019s first sergeant told CID that while he saw most \u201ctroops in contact\u201d reports, he didn\u2019t recollect the incident. He acknowledged that the details \u201csounded plausible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Others recalled the incident in detail but excused it. One soldier who never saw the motorcycle man before he was killed said, for example, that it \u201csounded like\u201d the man handed off the RPG to someone before he was shot. Another former specialist \u2014 who by 2023 was a warrant officer \u2014 told CID that unit members \u201cfired on the military age male on the motorcycle.\u201d He also recalled that \u201ca woman was on the motorcycle,\u201d too. He told the Army investigators that it was \u201cunfortunate that no RPGs were present\u201d but believed \u201cthe incident was handled properly\u201d since \u201cthey were authorized to fire from their command team.\u201d<\/p>\n Having never even attempted to identify the Afghan man, the woman on the scene, or the possible child; having never sought out any evidence beyond the testimony of members of the unit; and despite a signed, sworn confession by one of the shooters, Army CID concluded \u2014 within six weeks \u2014 that there was not \u201cprobable cause to believe that any soldier committed the offense of murder.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n CID refused to make the special agent in charge of the case available for an interview. \u201cUnfortunately, we are unable to support your request to interview DACID personnel involved,\u201d Special Agent Mark Lunardi told The Intercept, before leaving his job. More than a year ago, after multiple follow-up requests for information, Thomas Hamilton of CID\u2019s press office wrote: \u201cI will get back to you as soon as I can.\u201d He has, despite repeated follow-ups, failed to respond.<\/p>\n For more than<\/span> a century<\/a>, the\u00a0U.S. military<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0shown<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0consistent disregard<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0civilian lives<\/a>. It has repeatedly cast<\/a> or misidentified ordinary people<\/a> as enemies; failed to investigate civilian harm<\/a> allegations; excused casualties<\/a> as regrettable but unavoidable<\/a>; and failed to prevent their recurrence or to hold troops accountable<\/a>. <\/p>\n A\u00a02020 study<\/a>\u00a0of post-9\/11 civilian casualty incidents found most have gone uninvestigated. When they did come under official scrutiny, the \u201cmilitary too often relies solely on its internal records and sources \u2014which can be flawed and incomplete \u2014 to assess civilian harm,\u201d the Center for Civilians in Conflict and Columbia Law School\u2019s Human Rights Institute reported.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were probably hundreds of incidents that were just like it that we\u2019ll never know about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n These findings were bolstered by the groundbreaking work of the\u00a0podcast \u201cIn the Dark.\u201d Their 2024 investigation \u2014 a corollary to a reexamination of the 2005 killings of civilians in Haditha, Iraq<\/a> \u2014 found U.S. troops had committed 781 possible war crimes<\/a> in Afghanistan and Iraq that the U.S. military actually investigated. In at least 65 percent of cases analyzed by \u201cIn The Dark,\u201d investigators didn\u2019t believe that a crime had taken place \u2014 even in cases where perpetrators had, like the Banning veteran, confessed. The 2010 killing of the Afghan motorcycle man is, however, not one of the cases in their database.<\/p>\n In the 151 cases in which investigators found probable cause that a crime had occurred, that the rules of engagement had been violated, or that a use of force hadn\u2019t been justified, true accountability was rare. While 572 alleged perpetrators were involved in these cases, only 130 were convicted; the records show they rarely received significant prison terms. Much more often, their cases were dealt with by commanders with broad discretion to punish their troops with extra duty, demotions, or reprimands, in lieu of formal prosecutions. Fewer than 1 in 5 perpetrators, investigators found, appeared to have been sentenced to any type of confinement. The median sentence was just eight months.<\/p>\n Todd Huntley, an active-duty Judge Advocate for more than 23 years who deployed to Afghanistan twice with a Joint Special Operations Task Force, believes killings like the one described by the Banning veteran were a common occurrence. \u201cThere were probably hundreds of incidents that were just like it that we\u2019ll never know about,\u201d he told The Intercept. A current government official, who was involved in the wars in the Greater Middle East, said the total could reach into the thousands.<\/p>\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/AP846250664691.jpg?fit=3000%2C2000\")
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