Mark Waple, Maj. Galvin’s civilian lawyer, began his closing statement by clarifying what he called “mischaracterizations” in Sanchez’s statement.

For example, he said, any “go fever” that may have existed was on the part of MARSOC (Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command) and MARCENT (Marine Corps Forces Central Command), not MSOC-F.

He then outlined six questions the panel will likely address, and some evidence to support an answer to those questions.

First, he said, the question of whether the Marines experienced at least one complex attack.

At least two dozen pieces of evidence indicate the Marines did, in fact, come under at least one complex attack, Waple said, including the way traffic behaved, testimony from 16 Marines about hearing small arms fire, brass shell casings found in the area, opinions from EOD specialists about bullet impacts in one of the Humvees and information from a non-Afghan witness nearby about hearing two distinct types of gunfire.

The second question is could the Marine make up the story about the complex attack, Waple said. The answer, he said, is no. That answer is supported by the descriptions the Marines gave on the radio immediately after the IED blast — which would not have allowed enough time to create a false story, as well as the information they gave when they arrived back at the base.

“They didn’t stop for 15 minutes and get in a huddle,” he said.

The third question is whether Afghan citizens had reason to lie about what happened, Waple said, and there are “at least 20 reasons” to believe that people were motivated and did lie.

Tribal elders told some citizens to say they were injured to get money, Waple said, and the number of Afghans who volunteered to be interviewed by NCIS agents increased substantially after the first solatia ceremony.

There are a number of reasons to believe Haji Liwani Qumandan “was up to no good” on the morning of March 4, Waple said, including his testimony that he was carrying $10,000 worth of Afghan currency in his car, but no weapon for protection.

The fourth question, Waple said, was “Did MSOC-F exercise proportionate and discriminate fire?”

The fact that most of the damage to the blue Prado was to specific areas and that Afghans have testified the Marines still used hand and arm signals after the blast to get vehicles to move indicated that they did not use excessive force, Waple said.

The fifth question is how thorough and reliable was the investigation by Col. Pihana, and what impact did that have on the NCIS investigation, Waple said. The answer is “not very,” he said.

Pihana did not interview the ROC watch officer, did not interview the interpreter who was traveling with the convoy, did not ask for ammunition logs and changed his mind about small arms fire after talking to Afghan witnesses, among other problems, Waple said.

And the last is whether there was a disconnect between MSOC-F and CJSOTF and Task Force Spartan, Waple said.

“There clearly was a major disconnect,” which is part of why the court of inquiry was even called, he said.

MSOC-F was “long on teeth and short on tail. And CJSOTF couldn’t … or wouldn’t, provide the tail.”

The conclusions Waple said he’d like to see are: that there was no failure or deriliction of duty by Maj. Galvin on March 4, that the use of force by MSOC-F was consistent with the rules of engagment at the time, the efforts to document the mission and situation were sufficient, and that the command climate fostered by Galvin was appropriate.

Waple said he and everyone involved regrets the possible deaths and injuries of civilians, but that the responsibility for those deaths and injuries lies with the individuals responsible for the attack.

“We are simply asking that you treat Maj. Galvin and Capt. Noble fairly,” he said.

Capt. Noble’s civilian attorney, Knox Nunnally, started the closing arguments for Noble’s case.

Nunnally said the danger in the area of the bridge and attack were well known, and that a soldier with the 66th Military Police Company said they had reports of 13 Taliban and 11 Al Qaeda in that area equipped with vans and AK-47s, planning attacks in the Markoh Bazaar area.

Though Afghan witnesses have reported no small arms fire, their reports of single shots support the Marines’ assertion that they were firing only at specific targets, Nunnally said.

The panel also has information from a non-governmental aid worker who was with 40 workers north of the bridge at the time of the blast. The person said there were two guards armed with AK-47s, even though Afghan witnesses said they did not see anyone with weapons.

The worker was 500 meters from the blast, but saw it and felt it, then heard intense gunfire immediately afterward — specifically two distinctive different sounds of gunfire.

Nunnally said five Marines reported firing their weapons, 16 heard small arms fire and many — including the translator — identified AK-47 fire specifically, 13 saw indications of small arms fire and nine saw weapons.

He also said Haji Liwani Qumandan “told a lot of stories about who was in his vehicles” — telling the court there were two passengers in his vehicle, but telling the New York Times and investigators that there were three.

Qumandan said he had been transporting fertilizer earlier that day, and had purchased fuel — two bomb-making ingredients, Nunnally said.

And though the government ran Qumandan’s name through a database to see if he was connected with Taliban or Al Qaeda, they spelled the name wrong, Nunnally said.

The reporting of the incident on the MSOC-F side was complete and timely, Nunnally said.

And the various lists of injured and dead civilians cannot be verified by any source.

“I believe the only likely deaths that can be attributed to the Marines” are the three men in the blue Prado, he said.

The Army did not check the solatia list, instead accepting the list from the Nangahar governor, Nunnally said.

Because of that list, “theses good Marines have had all these casualties hung around their necks (since) March 4, and that’s not fair,” Nunnally said.

Afghan testimony contained numerous instances of fraud, including numerous people claiming to have been injured on a bus. The bus driver and an Afghan mechanic verified no one was injured on the bus and it was not hit by any bullets.

“These Marines have not been treated fairly, and that is unacceptable,” Nunnally said.

Maj. Kevin Woodard continued the argument for Noble’s side, urging the panel to look at the attack from the enemy’s perspective.

“We ask you to take a look at this from the perspective of the enemy. Ask yourself, does it make sense?” he said.

Woodard went through the timeline of communication, starting from the blast, to explain how Noble pushed the correct information up the chain of command.

While Noble sent two messages within two minutes of the attack, the liaison officer did nothing about it because he was in the break room, Woodard said.

“He wasn’t manning his post. He knew that he had Marines on Highway 1. … What did the LNO do? Nothing. … He decided instead to take a break,” Woodard said.

After those two attempts, the Reconnassiance Operations Center forwarded the information to CJSOTF to make sure they were aware, Woodard said. But the liaison officer was still on break.

A Marine from the ROC called him on a secure line, but still could not reach him. He finally reached Maj. Ukeiley on an unsecured cell, and asked him to check his e-mail.

The miscommunications and lack of information to certain people at CJSOTF was not Noble’s fault, Woodard said, but rather Ukeiley’s.

“They did everything they could do to inform higher (command),” Woodard said.

As he ended, Woodard asked the panel to think of how things might be different if the Marines had not all returned safely from the convoy. If they had returned with body bags, Woodard said, “would we still be asking the questions we are today?” 

Closing statements began this morning, with Maj. Phillip Sanchez wrapping up the government’s case.

After more than 40 witnesses and more than 5,000 pages of documents, Sanchez said, “try as you might, the facts will not fit together neatly. … You will be forced to decide whether individuals are lying to you.”

Sanchez compared the case to the Apollo 1 disaster, when three astronauts died in a fire during a launch pad test of the craft. In that case, a rush to launch he classified as “go fever” caused people to overlook the obvious issues. A similar problem afflicted MARSOC and MSOC-F, he said.

“‘Go fever’ permeated the process” of the command’s standup and the unit’s training and deployment, Sanchez said. The command was “too focused on creating and organizing itself.”

The company also was overly focused on “shooting and operating,” instead of other concerns, like staffing, Sanchez said.

The company had “a false sense of urgency,” he said, a desire to prove themselves as “a world class (direct action) force.”

“They weren’t going to let anybody get in their way,” Sanchez said. 

There was “no senior Marine leadership available to Maj. Galvin down range,” Sanchez said, and if there had, the incidents likely would never have happened. And the company’s liaison officer should have “shouldered the burden” of the logistical shortfall, Sanchez said.

“This friction was completely avoidable,” he said.

The court of inquiry has been in session for as long as the company spent operating in Afghanistan, he said, and there were at least eight people who could have stepped in at some point and helped mitigate the problems.

Still, he said, “the commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do.”

The court of inquiry would not have been called if Galvin was patient, and had conducted missions only in their assigned area, Sanchez said.

“MSOC-F takes no responsibility,” he said. “They had trained too hard not to be able to prove themselves. … They were forced to achieve success quickly, but that (need) was self-imposed.”

“Their boots don’t even have the dust of Afghanistan on them, and they already are worried about whether they had time to kill somebody,” Sanchez said.

The company’s “no-fail mindset” led them to believe they were right and everyone else was wrong, Sanchez said.

“It’s the world against MSOC-F,” Sanchez said, characterizing the company’s mindset.

The events of March 9 — which have not been discussed in open session — may be an issue of both incompetence and an integrity problem, Sanchez said. The three missions the Marines conducted that day resulted in two overturned vehicles, one Marine injured, two Afghans injured, two instances of shots fired, a mission in violation of CJSOTF’s orders and a conspiracy to cover it up, Sanchez said.

“There was a collapse of command and control,” he said.

Sanchez discussed the various things he considered proof of injuries on Highway 1, including a statement by Staff Sgt. Nathaniel Travers, testimony from Afghan witnesses and hospital records.

He also said two Marines reported hearing Capt. Noble issue an order to “cease firing warning shots,” but Noble denied issuing or hearing that order in his statement to Col. Pihana, Sanchez said.

The Marines did not understand the difference between the cultures of Iraq and Afghanistan, Sanchez said.

“Instead of adapting to their situation, they threw rocks and wanted to make the Afghans adapt to them,” he said.

Sanchez said five Marines — Roberts, Baker, Bravo, Hayes and Sheik — lied about their participation in the events of March 9. Four of those Marines also “had the best view of what was going on” March 4, but said they did not see anything.

“We know they lied (about March 9,” he said. “These are the same individuals who may have told you untruths on the stand.”

“Failure to acknowledge or accept responsibility for mistakes of 4 and 9 March demonstrates an absense of true moral courage and misplaced sense of loyalty by (Direct Action Special Reconnassaince) Marines,” Sanchez said.

The court of inquiry is in classified session again, where they are expected to remain for the rest of the day. We’re told the closing statements will be tomorrow, but that’s still not sure.

Maj. Derik Erickson, an Army logistics officer, took the stand this morning after the phone call with Lt. Wicks.

Erickson was assigned to MSOC-F to help with their logistical issues, he said.

The problem Erickson said, was that MSOC-F was deployed with no support element and Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) could not supply the company with support.

After repeatedly running into brick walls, Erickson resorted to exploring other channels to find support, but was turned down again when he proposed the plan to CJSOTF.

“In my opinion, CJSOTF just couldn’t do what needed to be done,” he said, explaining that he felt it was a combination of not wanting to and not being able to help.

“MSOC-F was, in essence, pushed on CJSOTF,” and when they were briefed on the unit’s needs, that seemed to make things worse, Erickson said.

“I sensed a real animosity towards the MSOC,” he said.

The special operations command knew what MSOC-F needed to be successful, and Erickson said it seemed they were setting MSOC-F up to fail.

Erickson also testified he had somehow gotten an e-mail sent by Maj. Ukeiley, MSOC-F’s liaison officer. Erickson said he was surprised at “the negative light that (Ukeiley) was shedding on MSOC-F.”

“He was not representing MSOC Fox’s best interests,” Erickson said.

Even though MSOC-F was dealt a difficult hand — including “less than desirable conditions” at the base and a lack of access to even the simplest things, they dealt with the situation “as best they could,” Erickson said.

The Marines had to “cut drug deals,” or make trades just for food or supplies, he said. The Army special operations units at the same base had boxes of cereal, but MSOC-F couldn’t get any and instead was sent trucks full of flour, cooking oil and other raw supplies — even though they had no cook or way to prepare food.

The electrical wiring at the base was “suspect,” Erickson said, and everything was just in “sad shape.”

Additionally, Erickson said he was impressed with the Marines’ professionalism.

They were confident, he said, but did not show “bravado.”

“They were focused on their mission, but not excessively,” he said.

Lt. Leah Wicks, who served as a platoon commander with the Army’s 66th Military Police company at the time of the incident, testified this morning by phone. Wicks is still in Afghanistan, and the phone connection was often spotty, forcing Wicks to repeat herself numerous times and creating breaks when the call would disconnect and lawyers had to try to call her back.

Wicks said one of the Army squads arrived at the blast site about 15 minutes after MSOC-F left. The second squad arrived about 30 minutes later, she said.

The squads told Wicks there was a “growing hostility in the crowd.”  They tried to divert traffic using the Afghan National Police.

Wicks arrived about an hour later and said “the civilian populus was hostile to American forces,” more hostile than she had seen people in that area before. No soldiers went west of the bridge because of the crowd, Wicks said.

The soldiers did ask the Afghan National Police unit to go up on the hill and do a sweep, looking for shell casings. But the police officers did not find any, Wicks said.

The American soldiers did find indications of small arms fire, Wicks said, including brass shell casings on the ground, a bullet-laden SUV, and people complaining of being shot.

The soldiers set up a perimeter about 300 meters around the blast site, and they found brass extending to the far side of the bridge as far as the perimeter, she said.

The brass they found was primarily on the north shoulder of the road, and trees on the side of the road had been damaged by bullets, Wicks said.

The blue Prado SUV appeared to have about 200 bullet holes in it, but no brass shell casings or bodies inside or around it, Wicks said. Though another soldier reported seeing blood, brain matter and an upper jaw in the vehicle, Wicks said she only remembers seeing large amounts of blood.

The soldiers collected “all the brass we could find,” mainly for 50-caliber weapons and the type of ammunition used in the 240 Golf, the weapon mounted on top of many of the Humvees. It was about 75 of the 240 Golf rounds and 50 of the 50-caliber rounds, and they all went into an evidence bag, which was stored.

A week before NCIS agents arrived to investigate the incident, someone accidently threw away the bag during a routine clean-up, Wicks said. Col. Pihana had not asked for the brass during his investigation, she said.

Wicks said they had gotten information about possible Taliban and Al Qaeda elements in that area, but that they often had similar reports of Taliban and Al Qaeda in Markoh Bazaar.

The soldiers consider that area one of the more dangerous, but not enough to restrict their movements, Wicks said.

Though the first team arrived on the scene just 10 to 15 minutes after MSOC-F left, they saw no injured people or dead bodies, other than the body parts of the suicide bomber.

Wicks said she had heard reports that bodies had been taken to nearby houses, but they were not able or allowed to examine the bodies.

Realized I didn’t post anything on Friday. Here’s my story about that testimony. 

Expert: Bullets struck Humvee

BY JENNIFER HLAD

January 28, 2008 - 7:50AM

DAILY NEWS STAFF

The nicks and marks on the headlight, gun turret and windshield of a Marine Special Operations Fox Company Humvee are almost positively bullet impacts, an explosive ordnance disposal specialist testified Friday.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Jason Mero said he examined the vehicle and photos of the vehicle 24 to 48 hours after a March 4 incident and determined that impacts on three areas were caused by small-arms fire.

Mero was one of two EOD specialists asked to help with an investigation into exactly what happened March 4 in Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, when the Marines of MSOC-F say they were attacked with a vehicle-borne suicide bomb and gunfire.

Mero’s testimony Friday was part of an ongoing court of inquiry into the events of that day and the conduct of MSOC-F and two of its officers - Maj. Fred Galvin and Capt. Vincent Noble.

Galvin was the company’s commander at the time of the incident. Noble was the platoon commander.

Afghan witnesses have testified that no one was firing at the Marines.

Thursday, Mero explained why he believes many of the marks on the Humvee - which was the second in the six-vehicle convoy - were caused by small-arms fire. He also testified that the Air Force officer in charge of the investigation tried to get him to change his mind and his statement about what caused the marks, but he refused.

Mero said the pattern of impact and the fracture marks on the hard plastic lining of the turret shield indicate a bullet grazed the edge of the shield at a 45-degree angle.

He said he is “100 percent certain” that bullet came from outside the turret.

Earlier in the inquiry, a firearms expert testified the marks on the windshield were likely not caused by gunfire because he fired a weapon at the windshield and it yielded more damage. But Mero explained that the damage looks different depending on how far away the enemy is standing when the bullet is fired.

Mero said he believes the impacts on the windshield were caused by small-arms fire from a distance, partly because of the pattern of the marks.

“The grouping is too tight for it to be (shrapnel from) an IED, in my opinion,” he said.

Mero said he was not able to examine the blast site, but he talked to the Marine EOD technician who was on the convoy and determined the bomb was made from a combination of fuel and a chemical commonly used as fertilizer, with mortars likely of Russian or Chinese origin.

The reason there was not more damage to the vehicles, he said, was that the bomb was detonated too soon.

Mero’s testimony followed that of retired Master Sgt. Jim Elder, who said MSOC-F was not given the basic necessities it required, and many service members - including some Marines - seemed eager to see the company fail.

The Marines arrived at their operating base to find it had no beds, the generators did not work and the water was undrinkable, said Elder, who was MSOC-F’s operations chief. They asked their liaison officer for help getting the things they needed from Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, but just found more obstacles, Elder said.

“My personal gut feeling is that they really didn’t want us to do well,” he said.

The liaison officer was supposed to help MSOC-F communicate with CJSOTF, but Elder said the Marine seemed unwilling or unable to provide assistance. “Instead of being our advocate … he didn’t seem to be facilitating the things that we needed,” Elder said.

The morning of March 4, Elder said he was sitting in his office when he got a call about the incident. He immediately went to the Reconnaissance Operations Center and only minutes later got a call from the liaison officer, demanding information they had already given him.

He continued to call even after Elder told him he would have to wait for the convoy to return to get more detailed information, Elder said.

The convoy took only 30 minutes to return from the incident, Elder said, but the gate guards at the base had already heard about it from other Afghans. Media reports about the incident also were posted before the Marines returned, he said.

Days after the incident, Elder said he and Galvin “could feel the hangman’s ax hanging,” but no one would tell them what was happening.

March 10, Elder and Galvin were relieved of their duties by the battalion commander.

But Elder said the battalion commander seemed to have had a problem with Galvin since the beginning, because he had not personally selected him.

“The relationship was adversarial at best,” Elder said.

Col. Greg Sturdevant, commanding officer of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, testified after the Afghan doctors.

MSOC-F trained with the 26th MEU and rode on ships with them on their way to Afghanistan, seperating when the ships got to Africa.

Sturdevant explained some of the challenges that Maj. Galvin faced as the commander of the first MARSOC company to deploy.

“There’s a lot of pressure there,” Sturdevant said.

One of the first things the two men talked about was what they perceived as a lack of support personnel for MSOC-F. That support has since been restructured for MSOC units, Sturdevant sai.

“They had a number of radios, but didn’t have technicians to fix the radios. They had vehicles, but no wrench-turners to fix those vehicles,” Sturdevant said.

Galvin repeatedly requested more support personnel, and Sturdevant said he believes he also expressed his concern to the II MEF commanding general.

When it became clear that MSOC-F would be leaving the MEU behind and the MEU would not be able to support the company, Galvin asked Sturdevant if he could give him some support personnel to take to Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Galvin said, he could not help.

Sturdevant also testified that Galvin worked well with the MEU and the ship’s captain, and always coordinated properly with other commanders when he was planning training or other events.

Training on ship requires a lot of advance planning, Sturdevant said, because it affects everyone else onboard.

Galvin is very straightforward, Sturdevant said, and “doesn’t beat around the bush.”

If he had a concern, he would say it, Sturdevant said.

“He never led me astray, never embellished.”

Two Afghan doctors testified this morning via a video teleconference from Jalalabad.

The first, Dr. Fazel Rahim Shagiwal, is a surgeon and the director of Jalalabad public health hospital. On March 4, 2007, he heard there may be more than 20 people coming in because of an incident, he said.

He created an emergency plan based on the assumption that they would all arrive at once, but the patients ended up coming in two or three at a time, he said. Some drove themselves, some took ambulances and others went to a smaller hospital first.

Though Shagiwal saw all of the roughly 16 injured people who came to the hospital, he only performed surgery on two of them. One was Nasurtullah, a teenager whose father and uncle testified via video teleconference earlier this week.

Shagiwal said he worked on Nasurtullah, but that his injuries were too severe for the hospital’s capabilities, so they transferred him to a hospital in Bagram.

Though Shagiwal said he does not specialize in confirming bullet wounds, he said numerous wounds appeared to be from bullets, because of the way the entrance and exit areas looked. He also said he did not find pieces of metal in the two patients he operated on, so he does not believe they were injured by the bomb explosion.

The hospital sees patient injured by bullets and explosions every day, he said, generally 10 per day on a typical day in March.

Some people also came in the day after the incident, claiming they were injured on March 4, he said.

Dr. Aman Gul Amani was the second doctor to testify. He is the manager of the Ghani Khail hospital, a smaller community hospital near the blast site.

The hospital saw 23 injured patients on March 4, he said, and sent 11 of those to Jalalabad for treatment because they could not take them. Amani gave first aid to about 11 of the injured, he said, but only examined four.

Some of the injured looked like they were cut by glass, some appeared to have hit themselves or been hit by hard objects and some who appeared to have bullet wounds, he said.

Amani recalled four specific cases from that day: a 10-year-old boy who had trauma to the head after the driver of the vehicle he was riding in slammed on the brakes and the boy hit his head; a woman who lost her fingers, a 16-year-old boy with an abdominal injury and Nasurtullah, who he said clearly was injured by a bullet. He had a list of the other cases, but the list only recorded general descriptions like “multiple injuries” or “neck injuries.”

He also said he knew Nasurtullah’s uncle, but had never met Nasurtullah before, so he was not sure if the young man used a wheelchair before the incident or not.

The incident March 4 “was the first big incident that my hospital was facing,” he said. Besides Nasurtullah, he is not sure of how many other people may have been injured by bullets, he said. But citizens brought three dead bodies to the hospital, who they said were killed by “the firing.”

Amani also testified that there is no record of Haji Liwani Qumandan being seen at the hospital that day.

Col. Nicholson began testimony this afternoon, speaking to the panel via a video teleconference from the Pentagon.

Nicholson served as commander of Task Force Spartan and the Army’s 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division for 16 months, where he was commander of most American service members in the eastern part of Afghanistan.

He explained that the Nangahar province contained a lot of rough terrain, including the area Osama Bin Laden is last known to have been. He said the area of operations was created specifically for a special operations reconnassaince unit he could not name, and that unit was tasked with learning more about the area.

MSOC-F was considered “a perfect fit” for that area because of their unique recon capabilities, he said.

Though Nicholson did not have command authority over MSOC-F, the unit was supposed to support Task Force Spartan and coordinate with Nicholson about their plans and missions.

Nicholson said he personally briefed Maj. Galvin about the situation in the area, showed him the exact area of operations MSOC-F was expected to focus on and told him his expectations about MSOC-F coordinating their activities with him.

He said MSOC-F “was bringing very unique capabilites that no one else had on the battlefield,” specifically recon capabilities, and they were expected to focus on recon operations.

The way the enemy fights in Afghanistan is different than in Iraq, he said, because unlike Iraq, where insurgents generally fight in urban areas, the Taliban generally focuses on remote areas in Afghanistan.

Nicholson’s focus was on the “human terrain” of the area, and was the link to the people in the battlespace. He said he expected special forces units in the area to coordinate with him so that their operations would not cause problems with the civilians in the region.

While Nicholson said he told Galvin to focus on recon in their area — and not worry about “working targets,” Galvin asked about doing missions in other areas, Nicholson said. He mentioned one area where MSOC-F may be needed for their recon abilities.

So, Nicholson said, he was surprised when he learned MSOC-F was conducting operations outside their area, without coordination with Nicholson.

“I asked, ‘Why are they up there?’” he said. “We did not need help in that area.”

After March 4, Nicholson said he learned MSOC-F had been conducting numerous operations without any coordination with Task Force Spartan. Instead, they were submitting their plans to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force — as required — but not letting Nicholson know.

In fact, Nicholson said, he didn’t know MSOC-F was doing a mission on March 4 until he heard that there had been an attack.

His initial reaction, he said, was “What are we doing out there?”

If he had known about what they had planned, Nicholson said, he would have raised a number of questions.

Soon after hearing about the attack, Nicholson said he started getting numerous reports of civilian casualties. The number reported was the highest he had heard from direct fire in his time in the country, he said.

He also explained that the convoy left the area, which was different than how an Army convoy would have proceeded. Army operating procedure calls for staying on site, treating the civilian casualties and figuring out what happened before turning the site over to Afghan officials.

“We would stay and remain in possession of the battlefield,” he said.

Previous testimony has indicated the Marines were supposed to leave the area of the attack.

Soon after the attack, the Shinwari tribe went to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Nangahar governor in an effort to stop American operations in the Nangahar province.

Civilian deaths are very significant in Afghanistan, Nicholson said, and the Taliban has actually lost some ground because of causing some civilian deaths. The cultural consequence is such, he said, that “the enemy tended to avoid populated areas in Afghanistan.”

Nicholson also explained that it would not be unusual for the dead and wounded to be gone from an attack site shortly after the attack — as in this case, where Army military police arrived roughly 30 minutes after the incident and found no bodies or injured people.

“They have a cultural requirement to bury the dead before the sun sets,” he said. “When someone’s dead, they move quickly.”

Likewise, the bomb blast and subsequent shooting happened on the region’s only paved road, which led to hospitals. It would not be strange for civilians to head to the hospital shortly after being wounded, he said.