Afghans yet to receive ‘genuine justice’ for Western coalition abuses: HRW
A man sits amid household belongings and the wreckage of a house destroyed in a strike in Patan village, Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Shafiullah Kakar)
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Afghans yet to receive ‘genuine justice’ for Western coalition abuses: HRW
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Updated 5 October 2026 08:02
Arab News
October 5, 202608:02
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- Human Rights Watch: ‘No clear path’ for victims, relatives to receive redress 25 years on
- ‘The indifference of governments and the passage of time should not deny people the justice, compensation, and recognition they are due’
LONDON: Afghans subjected to war crimes and human rights abuses by US-led coalition forces in the country have not received “genuine justice,” Human Rights Watch has said.
The organization cited “beatings, humiliation, waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, and mock executions” among numerous crimes committed following the invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US.
“Twenty-five years on, Afghans tortured in US custody and families of those wrongfully killed still have no clear path for filing a claim or receiving redress from the US government,” said Patricia Grossman, senior associate Asia director at HRW.
“Successive US administrations have swept grave abuses under the rug, leaving those most affected with neither compensation nor justice.”
The US and its allies were governed by the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture, and international human rights and humanitarian law “which prohibits summary executions, torture and other ill-treatment, and deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians,” HRW said.
In Australia, six years after the Independent Afghanistan Inquiry, just two arrests into the alleged killing of civilians have been made, and no trial has begun. None of the families involved have received compensation.
Meanwhile, HRW said the UK government “had tried to prevent any prosecutions” of special forces accused of killing Afghan civilians “by covering up crimes and shutting down criminal inquiries. An independent inquiry into the Afghanistan allegations was eventually established in December 2022, but its scope was limited to three years, 2010-2013.”
Local “strongmen” backed by the US had also carried out extensive human rights abuses, HRW added.
Under the protection of the then-Afghan government, these figures “were responsible for serious abuses, including attacks on civilians, the torture and rape of detainees, and enforced disappearances. Local militias funded and trained by US forces and CIA-run Afghan ‘strike forces’ carried out summary executions and disappearances.”
The Taliban, too, were condemned by HRW for their abuse of Afghan civilians, especially their targeting of women, embassies and hotels among other establishments.
“The Taliban’s use of indiscriminate improvised explosive devices on public roads and in populated areas was a leading cause of civilian deaths and injuries,” HRW said.
“The Taliban did not hold their personnel to account for abuses. Other armed groups, including an Islamic State (Daesh) affiliate, carried out suicide attacks targeting the Hazara and other minority communities.”
Despite an International Criminal Court investigation into human rights abuses and war crimes, in recent years much of that has focused on the activity of the Taliban and Daesh, largely ignoring the role of coalition forces, HRW said.
“In October 2025, the UN Human Rights Council crucially decided to establish an independent investigative mechanism for Afghanistan to collect, consolidate, preserve, and analyze evidence of past and ongoing international crimes by all parties, and to prepare files to facilitate future prosecutions,” HRW said.
“UN leadership should ensure the mechanism receives adequate resources and begins its investigations without delay.
“Judicial authorities abroad should engage with the mechanism to ensure that its work includes consultations with Afghan survivors of abuses, including women and girls, and supports prosecutions of those implicated in serious international crimes.”
Grossman said: “The United States and other countries that took part in the war in Afghanistan should properly investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes by their forces and provide appropriate redress to the victims of abuses and their families.
“The indifference of governments and the passage of time should not deny people the justice, compensation, and recognition they are due.”
Afghans yet to receive ‘genuine justice’ for Western coalition abuses: HRW
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