Afghan Forces Kill Four in Raid on Charity Hospital

Troops Arrested, Immediately Executed Patients

The Swedish Committee of Afghanistan, a humanitarian group which runs hospitals in NATO-occupied Afghanistan, is lashing the Afghan government tonight after one of their clinics was attacked by Afghan special forces, in an incident that killed four people.

The Afghan government accused one of the patients of being an injured Taliban commander. According to Swedish Committee witnesses, the troops “arrested a pair of patients, along with a caretaker” dragging them outside and immediately executing them with gunshots.

The Swedish Committee didn’t dispute the claim one of the slain might’ve been a commander, saying they don’t discriminate in patients they accept. Afghan officials have repeatedly targeted private hospitals over accepting patients from “enemy” factions.

NATO, for its part, seems desperate to stay out of this latest incident, after a November incident in which the US attacked a hospital killing a number of civilians. NATO insists the raid was an Afghan government raid, and they had no part in it.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.