NZDF hits back at raid claims
The NZ Defence Force has hit back at claims about an NZSAS raid in Afghanistan — saying its troops never operated in the two villages identified in the book Hit & Run.
Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating released a statement last night after meeting with Prime Minister Bill English amid calls for an inquiry into the raid.
NZDF said it could confirm its personnel had never operated in the villages named in the book as Naik and Khak Khuday Dad.
“The authors appear to have confused interviews, stories and anecdotes from locals with an operation conducted more than 2km to the south, known as Operation Burnham,” it said.
It said the villages in the book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, and the settlement which was the site of Operation Burnham, called Tirgiran, were separated by mountainous and difficult terrain.
During Operation Burnham, New Zealand was supported by coalition partners, which included air support capacity as previously reported, the NZDF said.
“The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) investigation determined that a gun sight malfunction on a coalition helicopter resulted in several rounds falling short, missing the intended target and instead striking two buildings.
“This investigation concluded that this may have resulted in civilian casualties but no evidence of this was established.”
The NZDF said Hit & Run did not prove civilian casualties were sustained in the village where Operation Burnham took place.
“The NZDF reiterates its position that New Zealand personnel acted appropriately during this operation and were not involved in the deaths of civilians or any untoward destruction of property.”
It added “any allegations of offending by NZDF personnel would be taken seriously and investigated in accordance with our domestic and international legal obligations“.
Hager told NZME the Defence Force were “tying to muddy the waters“over two locations in the middle of the mountains.
“We’re talking about the middle of the Hindu Kush mountains where there are no roads . . . on a river valley which took several hours to walk to from the nearest road. They’re saying that it’s slightly further upstream than what we were told.”
Hager said the claims were “astonishing“. “It doesn’t in any way invalidate a single major conclusion of the book.”
Meanwhile, the NZDF says it does not have a copy of the key report on which it has based its denials the NZSAS killed civilians in a botched raid in Afghanistan.
And it emerged yesterday that an OIA response to the Human Rights Foundation by NZDF Chief of Staff Commodore Ross Smith two days before the book’s release appeared to have offered another version of events.
Smith appeared to have contradicted the NZDF’s official statement that “allegations of civilian casualties were unfounded”. The letter says there was an investigation by two Afghan government ministries alongside the ISAF but “NZDF does not hold a copy of the investigation”.