Does NATO have a catch-and-release policy in Afghanistan?

Reuters is reporting on an unusual public statement by Germany’s special operations unit: Germany’s elite KSK commando unit issued a rare statement on Friday to signal its disapproval over the release of an Afghan it had detained for taking part in a deadly raid on German troops. The development comes at an awkward time for ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Reuters is reporting on an unusual public statement by Germany's special operations unit:

Reuters is reporting on an unusual public statement by Germany’s special operations unit:

Germany’s elite KSK commando unit issued a rare statement on Friday to signal its disapproval over the release of an Afghan it had detained for taking part in a deadly raid on German troops.

The development comes at an awkward time for Germany, which as part of the NATO force combating the Taliban is placing increasing trust in Afghan authorities in a "partnering" drive to gradually hand over security responsibilities.

The commandos, along with Afghan forces, detained Mohammed Naim in March on suspicion of taking part in an ambush on German troops a year earlier that had left three soldiers dead and several others severely wounded after an hours-long firefight.

Naim was handed over to authorities in Kabul, where the KSK said he admitted to having been in a battle near the German base in Kundus.

In an important sense, NATO (including Germany) has only itself to blame. Most NATO countries simply don’t want to be in the detention business, which they see as morally fraught and logistically complex. But at the same time, many NATO states have refused to turn over detainees to the Americans because of concerns about abuses. The result? After a brief window of time, most NATO contingents hand over captured fighters to the Afghan government, which likely mistreats many and releases plenty of others. I’ve argued before that NATO’s policy has been an abdication of responsibility dressed up as high-mindedness.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

Tag: NATO

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