Afghans claim abuse in U.S. custody

SANGESAR, Afghanistan -- More than 30 Afghans seized by American troops in a 3 a.m. raid on a village security post said they were kicked and abused at a U.S. Army detention center before being freed four days later.

"If they gave us all of Afghanistan now, this wouldn't make up for this insult," said one of the bruised and angry men, Fida Mohammad, 35.

Another man said it was fortunate his armed security team didn't react defensively to the U.S. force.

"If we reacted, there might have been a firefight, and many people might have been killed," said Ghousullah, 22.

Maj. Ralph Mills, a spokes-man for U.S. Central Command, said any injuries could have happened when the men were apprehended in last Sunday's raid.

"Some of the people may have resisted when being subdued, and they may have been bruised in the process," Mills said Friday. "We don't have anything that suggests that anyone was mistreated while in captivity."

The military has been reluctant to discuss its detention center at a U.S. airport base outside Kandahar, 25 miles east of here. Scores of Taliban and al-Qaida terrorist suspects are held there.

The Afghans' accounts of mistreatment were similar to those in February from another group, seized on Jan. 23 when U.S. special forces raided a compound in Uruzgan province and witnesses reported 21 Afghans killed.

After that attack, American officials acknowledged that the dead and the 27 men detained were neither Taliban nor al-Qaida operatives, but insisted U.S. forces were fired on first.

Men captured in that raid said in interviews with reporters that they were treated so badly that some lost consciousness and suffered fractured ribs, loosened teeth and swollen noses. At the time, the U.S. command denied that those detainees had been abused.

Stories in dispute

Sunday's latest raid was disclosed in Washington on Tuesday, when two U.S. military officials said it had been determined the men seized were neither Taliban nor al-Qaida members. On Wednesday, however, a military spokes-man said the men were still being "evaluated." But also on Wednesday, another spokes-man, Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr., they "never became detainees."

In fact, the men were not released from the detention center until late Thursday morning, according to the detainees as well as a knowledgeable U.S. military source in Afghanistan.

The Afghans had been housed and were operating from the compound, beside the main regional east-west road here, under provisional security arrangements made after a U.S.-led war toppled the Taliban government in December.

The dozens of militiamen, loyal to a member of the new pro-U.S. Afghan Cabinet, Aref Khan Noorzai, the small-industries minister, maintained security on the road and surrounding area, which has been quiet since the war.

The Pentagon's Rosa said the raid was carried out because weapons were known to be in the compound and Afghans working with U.S. forces "did not know who was in that compound."

Afghan officials said anyone who asked would have been told who they were.

"Someone gave the Americans wrong information, that there were al-Qaida and Taliban based here," said Mohammad Sharif Khan, 64, chief of the security force.