Human Rights Watch, in a statement released to mark the 25th anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war, has called on the United States and other countries involved to investigate allegations of war crimes and serious abuses by their forces and to provide compensation for victims and their families, warning that Afghans still have no clear legal avenue for redress.<\/p>\n
The organisation said successive governments in Afghanistan had failed to properly accept responsibility for, and repair, the harm suffered by those abused by foreign forces. Many detainees held by U.S. forces were kept for months or years without charge, and there has been no effective mechanism to seek compensation.<\/p>\n
Patricia Gossman, senior Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said people tortured in U.S. custody and the families of those wrongly killed have no clear path to file claims or receive compensation from the U.S. government. The group has documented beatings, humiliation, waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation and mock executions.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch also pointed to allegations against other coalition forces, saying investigations into violent killings and reported abuses by Australian and British troops have made limited progress. In Australia, the findings of the Brereton inquiry led to two arrests, but trials have not begun and, the organisation said, victims or their families have received no compensation.<\/p>\n
The report also highlighted cases involving U.S. forces, including the 2012 conviction of Robert Bales for killing 16 civilians in Kandahar and the ‘kill team’ case, in which several U.S. soldiers were convicted of murdering civilians, while other serious allegations, including the deaths of civilians in Wardak province, did not lead to prosecution.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch said accountability must cover all parties to the conflict, from the Taliban administration and the former government forces to other armed groups. It accused the Taliban of attacking civilians, aid workers, government officials and election-related targets, while also referring to allegations of torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearances linked to powerful figures in the former government.<\/p>\n
Despite preliminary examinations by the International Criminal Court into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said the investigation has not yet made any public progress for several actors. At the same time, in October 2025, the UN Human Rights Council created an independent investigative mechanism for Afghanistan to collect, preserve and prepare evidence of international crimes and serious violations of international law for possible future cases. Human Rights Watch has urged governments to properly fund the new body and ensure it begins work immediately, so that the passage of time and neglect do not prevent victims from obtaining accountability, recognition and reparations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Human Rights Watch urges the US and others to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan and compensate victims and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-social-affairs","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}