Lucylastic
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Reports of the demise of the Afghanistan War’s signature tactic are premature. U.S. Special Operations Forces will still conduct “night raids” on Afghan homes — sometimes without the prior approval of the Afghan government.
Over the weekend, the U.S. and Afghanistan signed an agreement placing restrictions on those raids, a longtime stated goal of President Hamid Karzai. The terms of the agreement seemed to put elite U.S. commandos in something of a holding pattern before the raids could go forward. In theory, the raids require an Afghan judicial panel to issue a warrant before a raid. No warrant, no raid.
Not exactly, say U.S. military officials.
First, the restrictions only apply to missions where there’s a reasonable chance of taking Afghans prisoner or “search[ing] a residential house or compound,” Navy Cmdr. John Kirby, a Kabul-based military spokesman, told reporters on Monday. No other special-operations mission, or mission using conventional forces, requires an Afghan warrant. So if special operations forces are targeting an insurgent as he travels, or planning to ambush a Taliban camp not suspected of being located inside a civilian’s home, no warrants are required.
But even raids on Afghan homes don’t always require an Afghan warrant ahead of time.
“Under the Afghan constitution, specifically in Article 38, it does allow for what they call warrantless search and detention of individuals that are deemed an immediate threat,” Kirby said. “Theoretically, these operations can still go forward without a warrant in advance. But it does have to be pursued as soon as practical afterward.”
In other words, the U.S. believes night raids can go forward before Afghan judges approve them. Those situations are supposed to be the exception, not the rule, Kirby said.
But Kirby declined to say if Special Operations Forces can still conduct a night raid if Afghan judges deny the warrant request. Nor did he say what the standard is for obtaining a warrant.
It’s clear, however, that night raids will continue in Afghanistan. Since December, there have been “more than 350″ night raids, Kirby said, all of them joint operations with Afghan commandos. The teams found their man in 75 percent of the missions, and only fired a shot during 31 night raids. (That works out to, conservatively, nearly three night raids every night since December, an index of how important the U.S. considers those operations.)
Kirby’s suggesting that there’s no daylight between how U.S. and Afghan forces perceive the importance of the night raids. It’s worth pointing out that the Afghans know who’s paying for their military, so perhaps they’ll approve those warrants. But it’s also worth pointing out that Karzai has long demanded an end to them — at least in public.
Still, even if Afghan judges start restricting the night raids, it’s clear the U.S. thinks there are work-arounds when necessary.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/night-raids-still/
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