Hazar Qadam raid
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On January 24, 2002, the American military launched an overnight raid against a "large munitions cache" north of Kandahar, as part of its
invasion of Afghanistan In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government. The invasion's aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the September 11 attacks, and to deny it a safe base of operations ...
, claiming that it was a weapons stockpile of the
Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
or
al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
. However, it was later discovered that the target was a compound that the United States had ''asked'' to collect weapons for the government of
Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (; Pashto/ fa, حامد کرزی, , ; born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan statesman who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Repub ...
, and that the dead and captured were all backers of the American invasion.
Stephen Tanner Stephen Barrett Tanner is an American author currently residing in Sierra Madre, California. He served with US special forces in Italy in World War II and following his graduation from Yale University in the US Department of StateNew York Time ...
, "Afghanistan: A Military History"


Battle

The
101st Airborne The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute multiple battalion-size air assault operati ...
was reportedly "spoiling for a fight", when they were given the opportunity to launch an overnight helicopter-borne assault against a school, which they characterized as "two adjacent compounds" in Hazar Qadam, 60 miles north of
Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...
. The United States found 400 60mm mortar rounds, 300
RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...
rounds, 300 100mm rockets, thousands of fuses, 250 automatic grenade launcher rounds and more than 500,000 individual rounds for small arms, that had been collected by their Afghan allies, and called in an AC-130 gunship to destroy the cache. The resulting firefight at the weapons depot killed 21 Afghans, and 27 others were captured and taken to
Camp Rhino Forward operating base (FOB) Rhino, also known as Camp Rhino, was a U.S. military base located in the Registan Desert of Afghanistan, southwest of Kandahar. It was the first U.S. land base established in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring F ...
as prisoners. Journalist Mark Mazzetti put the body count at over 40. One American was wounded in the ankle, making him the first American military casualty since Nathan Chapman was the first soldier killed.


Aftermath

Early reports said that it was an al-Qaeda compound, while General Richard Myers reported that American troops had attacked a "Taliban headquarters", and other officials said that the captives likely included both Taliban and al-Qaeda members. Over time, the US government qualified that it was likely not al-Qaeda and "mostly of a Taliban nature" or "Afghan fighters". However, Afghans protested, and journalists later revealed that the depot had been collecting arms under American orders, and the captured "fighters" were local leaders on the Americans' side, including the district police officer. The Governor of Kandahar,
Gul Agha Sherzai Gul Agha Sherzai (), also known as Mohammad Shafiq, is a politician in Afghanistan. He is the former governor of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. He previously served as Governor of Kandahar province, in the early 1990s and from 2001 ...
, issued a statement noting that the structure had been collecting weapons as part of a weapons amnesty program organized by the United States, and that the Afghan casualties included the district police chief, his deputy and members of the district council, each of them loyal to the American-backed
Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (; Pashto/ fa, حامد کرزی, , ; born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan statesman who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Repub ...
government. Eventually, the United States conceded that the attack was an instance of friendly fire, and released the prisoners on February 6. The prisoners reported that they had been beaten and abused in US custody. On February 5, Karzai noted that the attack was "a mistake of sorts", while
Secretary of Defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Presi ...
later said that the battlefield situation had been "untidy" and the US had acted on "persuasive and compelling" intelligence. When it was revealed that a number of the dead had their hands tied behind their backs, the United States defended its actions, stating that it was common for troops to bind the hands of wounded enemies in a fight - and that some must have mistakenly bound the hands of already-dead Afghan villagers as well.


See also

*
2011 NATO attack in Pakistan The 2011 NATO attack in Pakistan (also known as the Salala incident, Salala attack or 26/11 attacks) was a border skirmish that occurred when United States-led NATO forces engaged Pakistani security forces at two Pakistani military checkpo ...


References

{{Reflist Friendly fire incidents 2002 in Afghanistan Conflicts in 2002 January 2002 events in Asia