A night raid carried out by US and Afghan troops led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity that NATO then tried to cover up, survivors told the Times of London. The Feb. 12 operation was a botched pre-dawn assault on a police officer's home outside Gardez, capital of Paktia province. In a statement after the raid titled "Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery," NATO claimed the force had found the women's bodies "tied up, gagged and killed" in a room. But more than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were US and Afghan gunmen. The identity and status of the soldiers is unknown. (London Times, March 13)

A controversial policy that gives US forces in Afghanistan four days to question detainees is being changed to give soldiers more time to interrogate the captives, Gen. David Petraeus said March 16. Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that US troops will now be able to hold detainees for up to 14 days before either releasing them or turning them over to the Afghan government. In some cases, longer detention will be an option, he said. (CNN, March 17)

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit March 16 demanding that the US disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas. The suit especially seeks information on when, where, and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, the number and rate of civilian casualties, and other basic information essential for assessing the wisdom and legality of using armed drones to conduct targeted killings.

Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, the New York Times reports in a front-page story March 15, based on interview with military officials and business figures in Afghanistan and the US. The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces operatives. The mercenaries, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

From Human Rights Watch, March 10:

Afghanistan: Repeal Amnesty Law
Measure Brought into Force by Karzai Means Atrocities Will Go Unpunished
New York — The Afghan government should urgently act to repeal a law that provides an amnesty to perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said today.

A building of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Lahore was targeted in a suicide car bomb blast March 8, killing at least 13, including two security officials, and injuring 89 others. The targeted building is variously described as an "office" where terrorist suspects were interrogated and a "safe-house"—implying it may have been a clandestine prison. While the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility, Xinhua quoted officials including the ex-secretary of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Brigadier Mehmood Shah, saying the operation was beyond the Taliban's capability—which raises the question of who really did it. (Blackwater, the paranoid will doubtless tell us.) (Dawn, March 9; Xinhua, VOA, March 7)

Fierce clashes left some 50 fighters dead in northeast Afghanistan's Baghlan province March 7, pitting Taliban forces against their erstwhile allies in Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami militia. The fighting was be centered in Baghlan-e-Markazi district, a stronghold of Hezb-e-Islami, in a village called Qaisar Khail. Hekmatyar has reportedly offered to join forces with the government against the Taliban. (Times of India, WP, March 7)

At least 17 people were killed and 32 wounded early Feb. 26, when multiple suicide bombers attacked a hotel popular with foreigners and the surrounding area in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. The bombing is the first attack in the city since Jan. 18, when teams of suicide bombers and gunmen targeted government buildings, leaving 12 dead, including seven attackers. It is also the first attack in Kabul since the start of a major NATO-led offensive against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Helmand province. (AlJazeera, Feb. 26)