Slap on the wrist for 'aggressive' leader of rogue Afghanistan 'kill squad' as he's cleared of responsibility for atrocities



The commander of an army unit that lured innocent Afghan civilians to their deaths and then took horrific pictures has been cleared of responsibility for the atrocities.

Colonel Harry D Tunnell, the commander of 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, was criticised in a report for defying the Army’s established counter insurgency role in favour of a more 'search and destroy' type strategy.

The report stopped short of blaming the reportedly 'gung-ho' Tunnell for the appalling actions of those under his command, saying there was no 'causal relationship' between his aggressive leadership style and the killings.

Controversial: Colonel Tunnell has been criticised in the report for favouring his own more aggressive tactics over the established counter insurgency strategy

Dead: Afghans are tied to a post in one of the many images published by Rolling Stone from the 'Kill Team'

As a result of the investigation, Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti recommended that Tunnell receive a letter of admonition.

While he remains in the Army, the letter could hamper his future carer path.

In the report, generals who Tunnell had served under while in Afghanistan said he was constantly arguing with his superiors over the doctrine of counterinsurgency or COIN employed in Afghanistan.

The strategy, under which U.S. and Nato forces attempted to undermine the insurgency by gaining the loyalty of Afghans, ran counter to Tunnell's old-fashioned 'counter-guerrilla' strategy, where he instructed his soldiers to concentrate on engaging and destroying the enemy.

The investigation into Tunnell's leadership was launched in the wake of a Rolling Stone magazine article published last month that uncovered a number of shocking killings carried out by members of 2nd Infantry division.

Last month Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, admitted his part in the twisted scheme and was jailed for 24 years.

The remaining four soldiers who are due to be court-martialled are Sergeant Calvin Gibbs - who is accused of being the ringleader - Specialist Adam C. Winfield, Specialist Michael S. Wagnon II and Private first class Andrew H. Holmes.

Sick: The video is less disturbing than the first but it still shows a total disregard for combat rules

They were all part of the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, of the 2nd Infantry Division, who carried out at least four executions in Kandahar province between January and May last year.

In one horrific episode, the magazine claims troops threw a grenade at an innocent Afghan boy before chopping off his finger and later using it as 'gambling chip' in a game of cards.

According to Rolling Stone the men joked for weeks about killing ‘savages’ before finally murdering a boy of around 15 in a farming village, their first kill.

To cover their tracks they threw a grenade in his direction to make it look like they had come under attack.

But with his body on the floor events took an even more sinister turn as Gibbs allegedly started ‘messing around with the kid', moving his arms and mouth and ‘acting like the kid was talking'.

He then supposedly took a pair of medic’s scissors and snipped off the boy’s pinky finger and handed it to Holmes as a trophy for his first kill in Afghanistan.

Rolling Stone claims Holmes carried it around in a zip-lock bag.

‘He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,’ a friend said later. ‘He was proud of his finger.’



The magazine claims that among those accused: 'killing innocent Afghan civilians became less a reason for concern than a cause for celebration’.



Photo: Jeremy Morlock, right, poses with David Bram with weapons that they have taken from dead Afghans

In the Tunnell report, Brigadier General Frederick Hodges, then-director of operations in southern Afghanistan, said: 'Looking back on my relationship with him [Tunnell], I regret that I wasn’t more involved in his professional development during his tenure as a brigade commander.

'I should have specifically told him that MG Carter and I had lost confidence in his ability to command from his failure to follow instructions and intent.'

In his own statement to investigators in November, Tunnell described counterinsurgency as a mistake.

He said: 'Soldiers lives are routinely put at hazard because the doctrine has not been written within a context of American military art and science, organization or capability.

'U.S. Army forces are not organised, trained, or equipped to implement the doctrine.'

A separate investigation into the accused soldiers found that the criminal actions in the brigade were confined largely to a single platoon.



The investigation found that at least 15 members regularly smoked hashish and it was also reported soldiers killed chickens and dogs for sport.

Shockingly, on one occasion the entire platoon fell asleep while on patrol, failing to post anyone on guard watch.

