Germany, Sweden are said to weigh in on ‘kill decisions’

Rules say U.S. allies can’t participate in Afghan strategy.

— Two European allies of the United States have been directly participating in so-called kill decisions against insurgents in Afghanistan despite rules prohibiting them from doing so, according to two senior Western officials with knowledge of the operations.

The accusations concern airstrikes, mostly by drones, that U.S. officials have justified as part of a lasting counterterrorism mission agreed to with the Afghan government. However, some of the strikes have come under question as being far more aggressive than the security deal allows for.

The two countries said to be improperly involved in approving strike decisions — Germany, a NATO member of the coalition in Afghanistan, and Sweden, which is not a NATO member — as well as a spokesman for the U.S.led military coalition all denied that anyone other than the U.S. military had been involved in targeting insurgents.

But the two senior officials said the issue, which has not been disclosed previously, has been quietly increasing tensions between the U.S. military and its NATO and other allies. And the accusations are likely to cause a stir in Germany, where constitutional rules forbid offensive military operations in most cases and where human rights groups have joined lawsuits that alleged even indirect German assistance for U.S. drone strikes.

Decision-making for lethal Afghan strikes takes place in a room in the coalition headquarters in Kabul known as the Combined Joint Operations Center, or CJOC. There, video screens monitor the targeting of people identified as enemies who fall within the U.S. military’s authority to conduct counterterrorism strikes, and are supposed to keep civilians from being hit.

“They go around the table and say, ‘If you see any women or children, raise your hand,’ and that includes German and Swedish officers who are not supposed to be involved in counterterrorism,” said one of the senior officials, who has direct knowledge of the operation but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the targeting process. “A lot of NATO officials are pretty upset about it.”

The other senior official, who similarly spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: “This is the last thing NATO wanted to be involved in, but the Americans seemed to want everyone in on it. I guess they felt it gave them political cover.”

“They were sitting around there giving thumbs up or down, like gladiators in a stadium,” the second official said. “While it was meant to be a protection against civilian casualties, it made some of them very uncomfortable, particularly the Germans.”