Afghanistan Grenade Attack: U.S. Releases Footage In Defense Of G.I. (VIDEO)

KABUL — (AP) The U.S. military on Wednesday released a grainy video of a grenade explosion that killed two Afghans and wounded more than 50, while President Hamid Karzai ordered a government investigation into the incident.

The video shows about a half dozen soldiers working to free a large military vehicle that had run into a small median in the town of Asadabad on Tuesday in the northeastern province of Kunar.

A crowd of several dozen Afghans had gathered to watch the soldiers work. Then a bright flash can be seen. The camera zooms out and the Afghans hurriedly flee the crowded marketplace.

Some Afghan witnesses and officials, including Afghanistan's Ministry of Education, accused a U.S. soldier on Tuesday of throwing the grenade. But U.S. military officials and the Ministry of Interior said fragments from a Russian-made grenade were found at the site, and blamed an insurgent in the crowd for throwing the weapon.

None of the half dozen U.S. soldiers in the video can be seen throwing a grenade. However, the video does not make clear who may have thrown it.

The U.S. military said the video was taken by a stationary aerial balloon with a camera attached to it. The military, which has increased its use of social networking sites in recent weeks, released the video on Facebook and YouTube.

Karzai ordered his Ministry of Interior and local government officials to dispatch a "high-ranking delegation" to investigate. The statement from Karzai did not explicitly blame U.S. forces for causing the deaths and injuries, but he still used the occasion to chide American forces to be careful around civilians.

Story continues below

advertisement

"Stressing the need to protect the lives and property of civilians, President Karzai once again reminded the international forces to make every effort to avoid incidents that lead to civilian casualties," the statement said.

Karzai has long pleaded with U.S. forces to reduce the number of civilian casualties that occur during military operations. However, U.S. officials say Taliban militants often try to cause civilian deaths in the hopes that the negative publicity will harm the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

Several witnesses and victims wounded in Tuesday's blast told The Associated Press that they saw a U.S. soldier fire a grenade launching weapon. Others said they saw a soldier reach into his pocket and throw a grenade.

Those allegations appear to have been discredited because of the fragment of the Russian grenade that was found, and show the difficult environment U.S. forces face in trying to win over conservative Afghan tribes that live near the Pakistan border.

___

On the Net:

U.S. military's Facebook site: http://tinyurl.com/lnacs4

U.S. military's YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/usfora

Comments

[SGTMoatsUSArmy]

For all of you who believe the US Soldiers did this you are completely wrong. First off I am a soldier who is deployed to Afghanistan right now. Secondly I watched this video feed with the rest of my soldiers. I am an imagery and full motion video exploitation analyst. Here are the facts:

There is a short man/child in orange clothing (one specific one near the vehicle) in the crowd. you will notice that after the last soldier passes around the front of the vehicle he walks up extremely close and with his left hand places something on or near the MRAP vehicle. Then he walks off to the right at a very fast pace. Approximately 3 seconds later everyone in the front of the vehicle (civilians) noctice the explosive and begin to run away. Approximately one second after that explosive goes off. There was no editing done to the video. It is clear that it was a afghani local who threw/placed the grenade at the front of the vehicle. The most common grenade found in Afghanistan is the russian F1 fragmentary grenade. The UZRGM is a universal russian fuse and its fuse time is approx 3.5 - 4 second. Interesting how approx 4 seconds after the local placed the object near the vehicle and ran away the grenade exploded. Do research and know your facts before you talk on a subject that you don't know anything about.

-Sergeant Moats US Army

[vanderkamp]

Yes I agree Sgt Moats. Now that you have pointed it out it is perfectly clear an individual in orange jumpsuit places something towards the front of the vehicle and runs off.
It is surprising that the article says that the video does not make it clear who threw the grenade. I am sure the Army has other trained analysts such as yourself who must have spotted that.

[JoeBlough]

Winning hearts and minds - every day in every way.

[samjung23]

Witnesses said a US soldier threw the grenade?

Russian grenade fragments were found?

Doesn't mean anything, the soldiers could easily have gotten a Russian grenade from a raid.

This article assumes US soldiers are some sort of charitable saints that get the benefit of the doubt. Investigate.

[jrb35]

Yeah right. They would toss a grenade within a few feet of themselves. And for what reason? Nonsense. This is M.O. for the Taliban. Why is that so hard to understand?

[Hnorc]

And you assume they are wreckless murderers. I really hate you far left and far right nutjobs.

[GalenL]

Witnesses also said a US soldier used a grenade launcher, that is however irrelevant. Stop the video and 0:07 and 0:08.

[zaz33]

More than a dozen witnesses stated a soldier threw the grenade.

Our military has just lied too many times for me to assume their telling the truth now.

You can be sure the Afgan people won't believe our military.

Get our troops out of this occupation.

[Bubba Gump]

This incident show how instantaneous a dangerous situation can happen. My heart and prayers go out to our troops. God bless, protect, and comfort our troops, allies, and all the people of Afghanistan through Jesus Christ!

[Bubba Gump]

Looks to me that the real target was the Americans. After the blast, wind clearly shows smoke/dust blown from right to left, placing the blast in a location near Americans. From the vehicle, draw a line through the soldiers and continue to the shack. Does this look to you like the location of the grenade blast? Clearly, there were 4 Americans standing near the vehicle's open driver door and 3 definitely had their backs to the blast; the fourth was nearest to the vehicle, directly opposite of the blast, and could not have thrown a grenade without hitting the other 3 soldiers. A fifth American was walking toward them at a leisurely pace, no distress evident. But for an infiltrator in the crowd, it's hard to accurately lob a grenade inside of a moving crowd. Unfortunately, a larger crowd of unprotected civilians equals a larger likelihood of civilian casualties.

Somebody needs to explain to Karzai the basics about crowd management; Americans don't throw grenades at passive crowds -- because their American buddies are just as likely to get hit by shrapnel. If an American were thinking he was in danger, he could have displayed an M-16 or, if very stressed, fired rounds into the air as warning shots. The crowd would have scattered no differently -- but without harm to anyone. Think Karzai before you speak. Alienating Americans by the blame-game every time something happens in a WAR is as bad as Americans alienating Afghans because of civilian casualties.

[viper234]

Oh so they do release videos but only when they think it is "helpful" to their arguments. Whatever happened to the whole "national security" thing. Oh right that only applies to releasing videos and photos related to torture. Talk about duplicity.

[Gewyne]

Have to agree, the video has been cut- you see the US soilders and Afghans, then you see the Bang but the camera is zoomed out - so where is the zoomed in footage actual prior to the explosion.

[notb observer]

Without even looking at the video... It makes perfect sense to me that a US soldier would decide to lob a grenade at bystanders out of the blue like that... There was no commotion, no instigation, no attempt by the soldiers to take cover or fire their weapons... they simply tossed a grenade for no apparent reason.
I understand how an incident can be distorted by the other side, but really.... this is the best they can do ?!!
And now we find out the frags were from a Russian grenade... Are our troops being issued 30 year old Russian armaments now ?
I would take Karzai a lot more seriously if his brother didn't happen to be the leading narco-trafficker in Afghanistan. What a hopeless excuse for a country !

[Mike169]

Where'd everyone go?!

[gino618]

Gee - 'witnesses' lying about US Soldiers? Nahhhh - couldn't be, right?

[PiscesPrincess]

what is the matter with all you people. ? Did you not read the clip and watch the footage ?
the headline was not accurate. and insurgency is not something you stop with the draft.
all the military folks can do is keep trying to help when needed ... Notice anything in that clip.
None of the Afghans pitched in to help. just stood around. hopeless.

[kcmookie]

I cannot access the clip here at work, but are you suggesting that civilians help a foreign military presence in their country? I imagine any attempt to help would be refused by the US military, including force if necessary. Correct me if I am wrong, but I seriously doubt they would allow let alone encourage civilians to help. Just a thought.

[Michael Hudson 1]

you can see some one run away before the explosion, and before anyone moves, in the top right at about 3 seconds.
Its clearly not a soldier..

[TruthJusticeForAll]

Astute observation.

[JohnStuartMill]

Why does the picture step back (reduce size) twice during the flash? The reticle remains the same size, so the image probably wasn't enlarged in post production. Are these step backs "cuts" the result of video editing? Does this footage represent a continuous stream of events?

Is there another explanation for this besides editing? (Serious question.)

[notb observer]

I'n not an expert, but based on what I saw in the clip it seem that the zooming is optical and not digital. If it was post production digital zooming you would see a change in resolution (more pixellated image when zooming in) but that is not the case. So it seems the zooming happened in real time, perhaps under the control of a remote operator who was witnessing the event as it happened. It's also likely that the operator switched to another lens for the two different frames that we see since there is very little focusing of the camera.

[jrb35]

You're absolutely right. It's an optical zoom....... It makes complete sense to switch to a wide angle in order to get a better view of the surroundings and perhaps spot the attacker.

[vibroluxor]

I think the chance that the US military would put out a video with a questionable edit are slim, and none, with slim having just left town.

[vinny]

afghanis are expecting obama to follow through with his campaign promises too...

[pokemon]

I CANNOT WAIT to be deployed there!