For Pacifica Radio, January 17th, 2021.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is Anti-War Radio.
All right, y'all welcome to the show.
It is Anti-War Radio.
I'm your host, Scott Horton.
I'm the editorial director of antiwar.com and the author of the brand new book, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism.
You can find my full interview archive, more than 5,000 of them now, going back to 2003, at scotthorton.org and at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
All right, you guys, introducing Andrew Quilty.
He wrote this really important piece for The Intercept called the CIA's Afghan Death Squads.
I know you're asking which ones.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Andrew?
Well, thanks, Scott.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, happy to have you here.
And a great piece of work here focusing on a CIA-backed death squad in the Wardak province in Afghanistan.
And just so we're clear, does this count?
Are they calling this a counterterrorism pursuit team?
Or is that no longer a catch-all for any local militia that's backed by the CIA?
That's a good question.
The counterterrorism pursuit teams were more known for their work and their operations along the region with Pakistan.
So they do fall into that category, but they are not so much known as a CTPT as those other ones that were set up along some of the other provinces, Austin and Pakistan, for example.
But they do fit the same kind of criteria.
Yeah.
And then remind us, if you could, where in Afghanistan we're talking about here.
So Wardak is in what's known as Central Afghanistan.
It actually borders Kabul, which is also part of Central Afghanistan.
And you can drive from the center of Kabul to the provincial capital of Wardak on a good day within an hour.
Okay.
And then, yeah, so this is just kind of right outside of Kabul, right?
To the, like the South or the, is it the West or the Southwest kind of?
Correct, to the Southwest.
And then the CIA death squads that we're talking about here, this one is called O1.
I like that.
Is that a reference to the General Lee and the Dukes of Hazzard?
The, are they Pashtuns or they're from a different part of Afghanistan?
Well, look, that's, that's complicated.
I mean, you know, there are Pashtuns all over Afghanistan.
A couple of provinces in Central Afghanistan, including Bamiyan and the edge of Wardak and Ghazni, you know, which are all in a little clump in the center, do have a majority ethnic as our populations and, but otherwise Pashtuns are, I think they have, I think there's something like, actually, I'm not going to guess, but there's certainly a, they have a plurality in terms of the overall population.
And to be honest, it's not entirely clear who makes, what ethnicities make up these, these militias like O1.
Yeah.
Not to try to focus too much on that or anything, but, you know, about a year or so ago, maybe two years ago now, I talked with a reporter from also from the Intercept.
I believe her name was Mei Jiang and she was writing about a CIA death squad.
And I'm almost certain that this was, you know, a stark division in ethnicity, that it was, I'm almost positive it was a Tajik death squad that was persecuting Pashtuns and then creating all of this counter reaction and driving the Pashtuns closer to the Taliban and all this.
It's certainly something here.
I was not able to confirm anything of that nature.
These, these units are so, so far, so deep in the shadows, that it's really difficult to get a, you know, verify much at all about their makeup.
I do track down a couple of their members and, they were both, they were both Pashtun for what it's worth.
You do hear from some Pashtuns that some of these units are, do have Tajik or Hazara, strong contingents of those ethnicities and that they are part of their MO is to sow that kind of discord.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a, that's a pretty common theory amongst some Pashtuns who think the government is too heavily populated by Northern Tajik, the Tajik ethnicity.
But it's, it's not something I was able to really discern too much working on this piece.
Sure.
Well, and I mean, regardless of exactly who they are it sounds like either they're completely out of control or their job is murdering children.
Yeah, look, I mean, I, I find it difficult to believe, maybe I'm naive that they were set up for this purpose, but certainly over the time period that I was looking into their operations, specifically in Wardak, which coincided with the period where representatives of the US government were negotiating with representatives of the Taliban in Doha, Qatar from late 2018 through to early 2020, and during that time, it's hard not to see the, the patterns that emerged within those operations in Wardak in that time, those patterns being that many, certainly I would say a majority of the civilian victims of their missions were children, certainly children or adolescents who, and you know, the Taliban for all their misdeeds and, and, you know, war crimes of their own, they're not known for recruiting children as fighters.
That's not to say they, they are not recruiting them or they're not grooming them to become fighters when they're children, but they're not, it's, it's, it's unusual to, to hear of children.
And the definition of children here is basically anyone who can't grow a beard.
It's, it's as simple as that to find it, the Taliban are using people of that age or, or less as fighters.
So it's really hard to even with the most cynical point of view to paint these victims as, as combatants.
Well, and of course, you know, being minors, even if they were being recruited by the Taliban, that might be a great reason to take them prisoner, not line them up and shoot them in the head.
Right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Hold on just one second.
Be right back.
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All right now.
So the story begins here.
Um, again, it's Andrew Quilty and the article is called the CIA's Afghan death squads.
And the story begins.
These guys in the middle of the night, they raid a Madrasa and they murder half the boys and leave the other half as witnesses, I guess, to tell the tale.
So according to the two boys or two of the boys who survived the raid and who I was able to interview, the decision as to who would live and who would die was based on, uh, the, the perceived ages of the boys in the Madrasa.
So there were about 25 of them staying in, in a dormitory attached to them.
The dresser.
Um, all of those who were staying overnight were boys who lived, uh, you know, beyond walking distance of the Madrasa and they stayed at throughout and go home on the weekends.
So there were about 25 of them in there on that night.
And when the Madrasa was raided, the boys were broken up into, there was sort of split among four or five different dormitory rooms.
Uh, soldiers went into each and, and pulled out the sort of the eldest, eldest looking boys that, that of course doesn't mean that they necessarily were the eldest, but you know, they, they looked the eldest, they were the tallest or whatever, uh, judgment they used to, to discern that they were then taken into another room, uh, 12 of them in total.
And although neither of these boys, obviously because they survived, saw the massacre, they, they both certainly heard it.
There are only a room or two away.
Um, and they described what they heard as, uh, multiple automatic weapons opening fire at once.
And what they found when they were escorted from the building, from the Madrasa, a couple of days later when, um, villages, local villages came to see what had happened.
Um, they saw that those 12 boys who'd been taken out of the four or five rooms had been massacred all in one room.
And so there were, yeah, there were about 12 who were killed and, uh, 12 or 13 who, who survived and looked at, this was just one of four raids on, uh, Madrasas like this was certainly the worst one, but, uh, the others involved the deaths, you know, the, the, the murder, the executions of, uh, nine, six and six boys, respectively.
Hmm, man.
All right.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm talking about the CIA's dirty war in Afghanistan with the Australian reporter, Andrew Quilty.
And so just to be clear here for people who remember all the propaganda of 2001, a Madrasa does not mean a terrorist training camp.
A Madrasa just means a religious school that may or may not be connected to any armed men whatsoever, if I understand your reporting correctly here, sir.
Yeah, that's right.
And look, I was very cautious about this because I know it's a pretty sensitive issue.
Um, there is a perception, um, not without reason that Madrasas are used by the Taliban for recruiting purposes.
And it's certainly not the case that the Taliban do not recruit from these Madrasas, but it's also not the case that it's a, uh, a matter of policy that they do.
It's, I mean, recruits for the Taliban, young recruits for the Taliban are just as likely to come from Madrasas as they are to come from the, you know, the local farm or from the, or from the, you know, local, um, school for that matter, secular school for that matter.
And yes, um, Madrasas, um, you know, they, they have a, there's a perception that they only teach a, um, a certain brand of Islam that of course, um, particularly in Taliban areas, it is true to an extent, you know, a Madrasa that is in, uh, the middle of a, an area, uh, which has been under the control of the Taliban for several years is more likely obviously to, to follow a brand of Islam that adheres to the Taliban's brand, I suppose, but, um, it's not a given.
Well, it's an important point.
You know, I think from talking with Danny Sherson and other combat veterans of the Afghan war, I don't think they ever talk about fighting religious students.
It's always farm boys that are sniping at them and that they're, you know, sniping back.
That's where the Taliban come from.
Yeah, exactly.
And, and, you know, the other point of confusion is that Taliban literally means, uh, student of Islam in, in the local languages.
So, um, you know, it's not surprising there is confusion and conflation with that issue.
I've managed to speak to a couple of Taliban commanders recently, uh, in the areas that they control.
Interestingly enough, part of the reason I've been able to do that recently is because unlike previously, the Taliban now believe they can guarantee a, an outsider's safety because there is a far less chance of American airstrikes.
Um, that's been the case since the U S signed a agreement with the Taliban in February last year.
Um, the part of which I said, stated that the U S would, uh, use of, um, air power and, and, um, offensive operations.
So, but that's, that's a bit of a side note.
But I, I put this to these, um, these couple of Taliban commanders and, and they said, and, you know, again, it has to be taken into consideration that, um, you know, there are propaganda points to be gained here, but they said, look, we don't need to go recruiting from Madras's these days, we get more than enough recruits as a result of, uh, civilians killed by foreign forces and, um, and Afghan forces to an extent, I mean, this has been, um, you know, probably the biggest and most successful tool of recruiting, uh, for the last 20 years.
Uh, yeah.
Well, that's what Stanley McChrystal himself said was for every one you kill, you get 10 more.
So you think they'd just quit.
Exactly.
All right.
Now, a very important part of this story here, obviously the most important question of this story is just what all does Gina Haspel have to do with this?
And Mike Pompeo before her, because as one expert that you quote here, I think says the CIA keeps these teams on a very short leash, meaning under very tight control, whatever war crimes that they are committing, the Americans must know and are just as likely to have ordered themselves apparently.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
I mean, it, it seems that way and it's certainly, um, just looking at the timing of it in relation to the speeches that both, uh, president Trump and, uh, Pompeo when he was the director of the CIA made in 2017, after they announced the, the US's, uh, new South Asia strategy, as they call it, and part of that, they said explicitly was taking the fight to the enemy, uh, on the ground while pursuing diplomatic means, uh, as it turned out in, in Doha.
And then as you see, um, as my reporting suggested these raids, not only did they, they escalate, uh, not long after Pompeo's speech and the subsequent, uh, commencement of negotiations between the US and the Taliban in Doha, but they wound up when those negotiations culminated in the signing of the Doha agreement in February last year.
So it's, I mean, it's, it's very difficult to ignore that, um, that timing.
It's another point which, which I raised, um, several times in the article was the fact that the, uh, Afghan authorities in the security sector seem to have very little knowledge about the operations of these units.
Um, and, um, certainly the national security advisor, not only was he unaware of the raids that I documented in the story, but he was, he was unaware of, um, who actually controlled these units.
Um, and he pointed out that there is no, there is no means in the, um, the agreement that the US and Afghan government signed in 2014, um, um, the bilateral security agreement that was called for, uh, non-Afghan military units to operations unilaterally in the country without Afghan government permission, which seems to be what's happening.
Yeah.
Um, and I could tell from the, from, uh, the statements that you quote here from the officials that they weren't bluffing or, or kind of shining you on, they really didn't know and would have liked to be able to have good information for you, but just didn't have it because they're that far out of the loop.
Yeah, I think so.
And, and those who may have had information, um, those at the, at the top of the national director of security, the CIA's sort of counterparts in, in Afghanistan, as soon as I mentioned the, uh, the term zero one, uh, the, you know, the phone went cold.
So anyone who did know, um, both, uh, on the US side and the, uh, African government side did not want to talk about it.
Yeah.
Well, cause of what might happen to them from this absolutely unaccountable death squad made up of mysterious people that nobody knows and no one can find to ever prosecute for anything they do.
Um, this is just a side issue, but I have to ask you here before I forget or run out of time, have you become aware in your time reporting on the ground in Afghanistan of any actual information that there are Al Qaeda guys anywhere in the country?
Look, I, I have, I have not personally met a member of Al Qaeda.
That's probably not likely to ever happen.
I think I would say, um, as invisible as they are, uh, the preponderance of evidence would suggest that yes, there, there are elements.
Um, it's just, I mean, there's, and again, I haven't seen, seen this with my own eyes, but, but there's a lot of, um, uh, Arabs who, you know, who stayed and who had families in Afghanistan after the, um, the Soviet war in the eighties and who were welcome to stay around under the Taliban and probably made their way across the border into Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2001 invasion, but who are likely to have, to have, uh, returned as, uh, large parts of the country come under Taliban control and life in Pakistan, uh, became trickier as the Pakistani military, you know, uh, tried to crack down on, on, um, militant groups there.
But look, I, I don't blame you, um, for paying, um, skeptical about the, the existence of, uh, members of Al-Qaeda, but I, my sense is that yes, there are elements here that it's just, um, there's not enough disavowal from the Taliban, um, from what I can tell to suggest that they don't exist.
So look, they're, they're well hidden and they're certainly not a visible on a day to day basis in, you know, anywhere in Afghanistan.
They don't, they're not known to conduct operations of their own.
I suppose you'll, you know, the intelligence services will say that they cooperate with Taliban or train them or facilitate with finances or, or, um, or other kinds of training, but they're not, they're not carrying out any operations of their own in Afghanistan.
So look, it's a tricky one, but I don't, I don't blame your skepticism at all.
Well, and I appreciate that it sounds like there's no real evidence, but it sounds like you're saying that from what, the way you understand the way the Taliban operates, that if they weren't palling around with Al-Qaeda, they would do more to insist that they're not.
And the fact that they're quiet about that means they don't want to alienate their Al-Qaeda friends.
It seems like to you, is that basically right?
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, you know, the, based on, um, Afghan cultural tradition, the Taliban's in a tough spot, you know, same way that they're in a tough spot when, when, um, bin Laden screwed things up for them in 2001.
I mean, they are culturally obliged, culturally and religiously obliged to, um, you know, welcome their guests.
And so they're in, they're in a tough spot.
And, um, you know, I, I think they'd probably be happy if, if, um, any, you know, existing members of Al-Qaeda, um, you know, quietly made their way somewhere else in the world.
Um, there's certainly, I think the, the headaches that they provide for a possible negotiated settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government, uh, are greater than the, than any positive contributions that they might make to the Taliban.
Yeah.
It always was the case that, you know, okay.
They might help fight the Northern Alliance a little bit or something, but at the same time, they're getting y'all into trouble with the Americans.
So, which is more important.
Yeah.
Kind of more trouble than they're worth really.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, all right now.
So here's the thing about Joe Biden being the president elect.
He's not just some democratic governor or something.
He's been in on everything all along, everything.
And even the focus on increased night raids and increased CIA shadowy counterterrorism activities, meaning terrorism, like in your article here, murdering children that Trump picked up the Obama Biden policy and of course made it worse to, as you say in the article, devolved authority to the lowest level legal in the, in the battlefield in terms of, uh, you know, scrapping all of the extra box checking that the Obama government required for calling in strikes and things like that and escalated the amount of air strikes.
But when it comes to, uh, and, and this comes up in the article numerous times too, it's not really just CIA that their special operations command and including their air power are working in concert with these guys all the time.
So if anything, this is what Biden thought back in 2009 was the smart way to go as opposed to trying to even bother winning hearts and minds or any of that garbage of the counterinsurgency campaign that will just seek out bad guys and kill them.
Except that as Mike Flynn argued then, how do we know who the bad guys are if we don't have anybody on the ground to give us good intelligence to tell us who to kill?
Not that the search helped with that really, but that was his thinking at the time, which makes a lot of sense and which reveals that Biden's plan doesn't.
Biden's plan means you're sending death squads out to kill.
You don't know who innocent people.
Yeah, that's right.
Look, and it's, it's very hard to predict what he's going to do.
And I can tell you that everyone here is, um, is on tinder hooks waiting to find out what the new president Biden will, will do with Afghanistan.
This, you know, reports coming out on a daily basis about what the, what each person is predicting, which what each expert is predicting.
But, um, all we have to go on, as you've already outlined, is his advocacy for, uh, small footprint, um, high intensity special forces type, uh, counterterrorism operations, which, which these kinds of units certainly, um, fall into.
I mean, night raids really, right?
We've had, night raids, exactly.
Night raids, drone strikes, that kind of thing.
And, you know, it's, um, from the point of view of your average voter in the US, um, I suppose it's, um, you know, who's not engaged in, in what's going on in Afghanistan, you know, in rural Afghanistan from day to day, it's probably from an electoral point of view, it's probably the smart move because these guys are going out in the dead of night.
Um, there's not a, you know, a journalist or a human rights, um, activist within, you know, a hundred miles.
And very, it's, it's very rare that these guys, um, because of the overwhelming amount of force that they use, um, that these guys are, um, in these kinds of counterterrorism operations.
So, you know, I get it.
It looked for, for someone trying to get into office or trying to win votes, um, which, which Biden of course has already done.
So, you know, he doesn't have to worry about that for another four years.
But if he wants to keep this out of the newspapers, then I, I, I hate to say it, but it's probably, um, you know, it's probably the smart move.
And I say that, um, I certainly don't advocate for that kind of move myself.
Yeah, no, I understand.
You mean it from a cynical political point of view?
Of what's good for him and Obama and Trump escalated both?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Obama and Trump both escalated the war for those exact reasons.
Not for Afghan reasons, but for Washington DC reasons.
Except in this case now, Donald Trump has signed a deal with the Taliban, which two things here, is there any mention of the CIA in the deal?
And would it be permissible under the deal for us to pull out?
Not in the public version of it.
You know, the secret classified annexes, there is thought to be, um, mentions of the CIA and it's believed that the, um, for obvious reasons that the Taliban have very strong views on, um, both CIA and their, uh, militias.
And then, and there's the question, and Biden has, has raised this.
So whether he's going to abide by the deal at all, he's going to do what Trump did to Obama and Biden's Iran deal and just ignore it.
Or he said, you know what we might do?
Maybe we'll just move all our bases to Pakistan and then we'll do strikes into Afghanistan from there.
And the Pakistanis were like, what?
No.
Yeah.
Well, we, we, we wait and we wait with bated breath.
I'll tell you what.
All right.
Listen, everybody, you got to go read this article.
It's so important.
This war is not over yet.
It's, uh, the CIA's Afghan death squads by Andrew Quilty at the intercept.
And, uh, I gotta tell you, I really appreciate your time on the show today, Andrew.
Been a pleasure, Scott.
Thanks, man.
All right, Sean.
That has been anti-war radio for this morning.
Again, I'm your host, Scott Horton, editorial director at antiwar.com and author of the brand new book enough already time to end the war on terrorism.
You can find my full interview archive, more than 5,000 of them now going back to 2003 at scotthorton.org and at youtube.com slash Scott Horton show.
See you next week.
