KHAS URUZGAN, Afghanistan — Caked blood, charred bedding and flame-blackened walls serve as testimony to what Afghans say was a horrific mistake. Two weeks later, the Pentagon is investigating the deadly assault.
U.S. special forces burst into a small religious school here on Jan. 23, killing 19 people, most of them where they slept, Afghans who survived or witnessed the raid told the Associated Press. Two of the 19 — both members of a government-appointed delegation — were handcuffed and shot in the schoolyard, the Afghans say.
The Pentagon first said the raid was an attack on an al-Qaida weapons dump and that troops killed about 15 people and captured 27 Taliban and al-Qaida members. But the Afghans say the dead were not Taliban renegades at all and instead included members of a government mission that had taken the weapons from Taliban holdouts.
Maj. Ralph Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, acknowledged Wednesday that none of the 27 captured in the raid was al-Qaida or Taliban and that all have been released. He said the United States is investigating whether any of those killed were also the wrong people.
Mills said U.S. forces were fired on during the raid, and one soldier was shot in the foot. He said the troops had strong intelligence information before moving in.
"Obviously, we had a reason to go into that area. We still stand firmly on that reason," he said.
Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said the United States had acknowledged it killed the wrong people in Khas Uruzgan. He told The Washington Post the killings were "a mistake of sorts," resulting from "an unfortunate movement of people at the wrong time."
Afghan witnesses say U.S. planes also bombed government offices near the school and killed two more people there for a total of 21 dead.
The dead at the school, where members of the government mission were spending the night, included two locally prominent Pashtun commanders who residents say were instrumental in ending Taliban rule here in Uruzgan province.
"We were all sleeping. They didn't give us a chance to surrender," survivor Niaz Mohammed told AP. "They came to kill us."
The events of Jan. 23 remain in dispute, but it is clear that the Pentagon's initial account was incorrect or incomplete.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Americans were fired on first. On Jan. 30, however, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that basic facts about the raid — including who shot first — had not been verified and that an inquiry had been ordered.
Rumsfeld told reporters Monday that U.S. troops had gone back to the area to investigate. He said that if innocent people died, the Americans should apologize on the spot.
"This is beyond our understanding," Uruzgan district chief Abdul Qudus Irfani, appointed by Karzai's government, said Monday. Abdul Qudus, like all others interviewed here, insisted that all the dead were anti-Taliban Afghans.
Abdul Ali, who works for the Red Cross, said he climbed to the roof of his mud-walled house about 100 yards from the school on the night of the attack after his children told him "the planes are coming."
Looking out, Abdul Ali saw vehicles parked in the road between his home and the school. Men were running from them. He assumed they were friends of those sleeping in the school "running inside to get warm."
"But when they reached here, they opened fire," Abdul Ali said, gesturing at the open breezeway of the hall that connects the rooms of the U-shaped school building.
No one inside the school rooms fired back, according to Abdul Ali, Niaz Mohammed, and others here. "There was no firing" back, Abdul Ali said. "There was no time."
Niaz Mohammed, who was sleeping in one room with about 10 other men, awoke to the sound of helicopters and gunfire and the sight of Americans running toward him. As Americans opened fire in his room, he said, he escaped by jumping through one of the shattered windows.
After the raiders left, resident Mir Hussain said he rushed to the school and found most of the dead still stretched out on their blood-soaked sleeping mats. One man lay dead at the door of Niaz Mohammed's room as if he'd tried to run out.
A week and a half later, pools of thickly coagulated blood and human tissue lying at regular intervals across the room appeared consistent with the men's accounts that the victims were shot where they'd been sleeping.
Hussain and others said in one room, they found the charred, bullet-riddled bodies of anti-Taliban commanders Haji Sana Gul and Qudus Khan. Their bodies were curled on their sleeping mats. A third body was sprawled near the door, charred by flames, he said.
Hussain showed the thick bloodstain on the playground where he said he found another member of the government delegation, Shah Mohammed, who had been shot in the back with hands cuffed behind him. They showed one severed pair of plastic cuffs, of the kind used by Western law enforcement.
He and a colleague pointed out a pile of rocks in the schoolyard where they had found the body of another handcuffed man, who lay sprawled after being shot repeatedly. They said the man was also a member of the government delegation.
Survivors said that Special Forces troops were using plastic straps to handcuff men during the school raid, but none said they actually witnessed a shooting of a handcuffed man.
A spokesman at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., Capt. Robert Riggle, said the United States would not comment on the account of the killings of the handcuffed men until an official investigation is completed.
Niaz Mohammed, the survivor, said all the attackers he saw were Americans except for two Afghans, apparently translators. One American stood by his vehicle outside the school and gave the orders, Niaz Mohammed said. "I could see the black jackets (of the Americans) by the headlights," he said.
U.S. special forces in Afghanistan generally wear black fleece jackets and khakis.
American helicopters and an AC-130 gunship blasted the compound, residents said. On Monday, the school's windows and window frames were blasted from their sills and the courtyard was strewn with fire-gutted hulks of vehicles.
One room of the school held piles of intact Chinese-made rockets and anti-aircraft rounds that Abdul Qufus, the district chief, said had been handed over by the Taliban in the surrender deal. The United States said a storehouse of Taliban weapons was destroyed in the raids.
Abdul Ali, the neighbor, said he was arrested and handcuffed by the Americans. They released him near dawn, he said, after he told his 14 children to wail loudly at his detention.
On the opposite side of the school, farmer Ahmad Shah showed holes punched through the walls of his mud home. American rockets fired during the attack penetrated inside to where he slept with his nine children, Ahmad Shah said.
Standing outside the school Monday, district chief Abdul Qudus — like others — urged the United States to bring to justice in Afghan courts those responsible for the attack.
Bari Gul, whose brother was killed in the attack, suggested the Americans had been misinformed. It is for the Americans, he said, to explain the reason for the attack.
"You should ask the Americans," he said. "These were government forces? Why would they have done such a thing? People are angry."