Then, around 11 a.m., they heard the sound of motorcycles, and a group of roughly 30 armed men entered the yard, some wearing the tan uniforms of the U.S.-funded Afghan Local Police (ALP) program, others in traditional robes and turbans. Leading them was Abdullah, a well-known local commander of a pro-government militia that is not part of any formal government entity. In his eyes, the villagers of Alizai were all Taliban sympathizers. “All of the people were afraid when they came,” Yousuf recalled.

Abdullah and his militia left Alizai to join a battle against the Taliban in a neighboring village, but returned that same afternoon. According to eyewitnesses, when he returned, Abdullah first went into the yard where the soldiers had set up their vehicles and equipment; then he walked over to three men and a boy of 14 who had been kept separate from the rest of the villagers in the second yard. They had been rounded up with everyone else that morning and were suspected of having links to the Taliban.

All but one of them, the boy, were bound and blindfolded. According to eyewitnesses, Abdullah and his men put the three captives — Mohammad Gul, Nasrullah and Fazaldin — on the back of motorcycles and drove away as U.S. and Afghan soldiers looked on from rooftop positions. Soon afterward, the villagers said, they heard gunfire.

A shopkeeper from Telbeh, a village about two miles from Alizai, was returning from his store in Andar district center when he encountered the group of militiamen. He watched from a distance, he says, as they led three men, blindfolded and bound, to the side of the road and shot them. “They immediately fired on them,” he said. “They fired an uncountable number of times, more than 100.”

Several other witnesses were present, he and other locals said, and the killings have become widely known in the area. The United Nations, which conducted its own investigation of the executions in Andar, confirmed that the killings had taken place. “The U.N. has investigated and verified allegations of extrajudicial killings of three men by a pro-government militia,” said Georgette Gagnon, the head of the U.N. human rights unit in Afghanistan. “There has so far been no accountability for these executions.”

“Three individuals were removed from the area of operations by Afghan security personnel for further questioning,” Belcher said. “Postoperational briefings/summaries gave no indication of detainee mistreatment.”

Belcher also denied that ISAF worked with any unofficial militias. “ISAF advisers do not partner with militias,” he said. “Rather, they work with legitimate MOD [Ministry of Defense], MOI [Ministry of Interior] and ALP partners.”

According to Belcher, ISAF had not heard allegations of the killings in Andar until they were raised by Al Jazeera, but it subsequently conducted an inquiry. “The inquiry found no information that substantiates the allegations. We have passed the allegations to our Afghan counterparts to conduct their own inquiry,” he said. “According to Afghan officials with whom we spoke after receiving your inquiry, these individuals were questioned and later released without harm.”

Spokespersons at the both the Afghan Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior declined to comment on the allegations. But when reached by telephone, Abdullah, the militia commander, acknowledged killing the men. “I killed these three people,” he said when asked about them by name. “Those three were Taliban.” He also claimed that he has received, and continues to receive, backing from the U.S. special forces for his unofficial militia. “Everything is provided by the foreigners, including the weapons, salaries and other equipment.”