The release by the WikiLeaks Web site of 90,000 secret documents on the war in Afghanistan has put hundreds of Afghan lives at risk because the files identify informants working with NATO forces, the London Times reported yesterday.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said earlier this week that all the documents released through his organization had been checked for named informants and that 15,000 such documents had been held back.
But the Times reported that after just two hours of combing through the documents it was able to find the names of dozens of Afghans said to have provided detailed intelligence to US forces.
Experts said the Taliban and al-Qaeda would already be using the information to identify and target informers in the war zone.
The Times cited one 2008 document that included a detailed interview with a Taliban fighter considering defection.
The man, who names local Taliban commanders and talks about other potential defectors, is identified by name, along with his father’s name and village.
In another case from 2007, a senior official accuses named figures in the Afghan government of corruption.
“The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans,” a senior official at the Afghan foreign ministry, who declined to be named, told the Times.
“The US is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the US/international access to the uncensored views of Afghans,” the Afghan official told the newspaper.
US officials have said they were working to see if the mass document release late on Sunday could jeopardize operational security and US national security or the endanger lives of informants in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile yesterday, a packed bus hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, killing 25 people aboard, as NATO announced another US death in a rapidly rising monthly death toll.
The passenger bus was traveling in Nimroz Province on a main highway toward Kabul when it struck the explosive around 7am local time, said Nazir Ahmad, a provincial government spokesman. Another 20 people were wounded, he said.
The explosion occurred around Delaram near the borders of Helmand and Farah provinces.
In other news, NATO forces said a US service member was killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, without giving further details.
This is already one of the deadliest months for US troops in the nearly nine-year Afghan war, with 59 service members killed so far. That’s just shy of the 60 that died last month — currently the deadliest month for US forces.
US forces have pushed into southern Taliban strongholds in recent months and weeks in an attempt to squeeze insurgents out of the area where they have long functioned as a de facto government.
Along with the surge, attacks on military forces and Afghan supporters of the government have increased. Many civilians have also been killed or injured in incidents like yesterday’s bus bomb or caught up in the crossfire.
The NATO military coalition is also receiving heavy casualties overall. Altogether, 80 NATO troops have died so far this month. Last month, 103 NATO forces were killed.
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