A Soldier’s Deadly March to Massacre in Kandahar
Long before the sun even hinted at lighting the sky Sunday, an American soldier left the remote combat outpost of Camp Belambay, allegedly headed for two villages in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province.
The district is notorious as a hotbed of Taliban activity, even considered the cradle of the militant movement, though one resident swore she hadn’t seen Taliban fighters in months.
She was one of many villagers who had fled the area but returned recently. The Americans on the nearby military base, she said, assured them the area was safe; that no one would bother them.
In the early hours of Sunday, most villagers were in their homes, asleep. They were used to the sounds of helicopters whirring overhead and night raids conducted by U.S. troops.
An Afghan soldier at Belambay spotted a soldier going out around 3 a.m., past the blast barriers, and notified U.S. commanders.
The commanders immediately ordered a head count, as the military always does. They confirmed a soldier was missing and assembled a search party right away, according to Gen. John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
“It was as that search party was forming that we began to have indications of the outcome of his departure,” Allen said.
In the villages, witnesses said, an American soldier began going house to house, seeking out Afghan men, women and even children. Inside the mud walls, they were caught off guard by the intruder.
Then came the unimaginable.
The American pointed his gun at them and fired.
He pulled a boy from his sleep and shot him in the doorway, according to one witness. Then he came back inside the room and put a gun in the mouth of one child and stomped on another.
Streams of dark crimson smeared the drab surroundings and dampened the parched earth. Shell casings littered the ground.
When he was finished, 16 people, including nine children, were dead — 11 belonged to one family. Several others were wounded.
The soldier dragged some of the bodies out and set them afire.
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With carnage behind him, the soldier left.