U.S. Soldiers Return from Afghanistan to Kill Their Wives
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Last victim… so far |
Additional
reporting by Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Staff
WASHINGTON,
July 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In a rash of violence that
shocked the Special Operations Command and left U.S. Army commanders
deeply concerned, four wives of U.S.
soldiers, who recently served in Afghanistan, were killed over the
past six weeks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Analysts believe it may
be stress-related crimes, news agencies reported
Saturday, July 27, 2002
.
Three
of the servicemen involved were members of Special Operations units
and had recently returned from
Afghanistan
. Two of those soldiers killed themselves, police said. The fourth
slaying, which occurred earlier this month, was allegedly committed by
a sergeant from a regular Army unit that was not involved in the
Afghan war, reported CNN.
In
addition to these six deaths, an officer assigned to the Army Special
Operations Command at
Fort
Bragg
was shot and killed earlier this week as he slept in his home in
nearby
Fayetteville
. No arrests were made in that case, a spokesman for the
Fayetteville
police department said.
"It's
mind-boggling," Henry Berry, manager of an Army family support
program, said at a news conference at the base Friday. "To be
absolutely honest, I was completely caught off guard."
Fort
Bragg
is one of the Army's biggest bases. It is home to about 40,000 troops,
including two elite units, the 82nd Airborne Division and the Army
Special Forces Command, that have played key roles in the Afghan war.
Special
Forces troops were at the fore of the
U.S.
offensive in
Afghanistan
last fall, coordinating air strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda front
lines and also working with local Afghan opposition forces. Parts of
the 82nd Airborne recently were deployed to
Afghanistan
to replace units from the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne divisions.
Commanding
officers at the base, especially in Special Forces, are puzzled and
concerned by the string of killings, military officials said.
"They're running around in circles here," one senior officer
said in a telephone interview, CNN said.
"I've
never seen anything like it," said retired Air Force Col. John
Carney, who spent almost two decades in Special Operations units. He
said he knows many of the commanders of the units involved.
"I'm
sure they're just as mystified as I am," said Carney, who is
president of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a charitable
organization that provides free college educations to the children of
Special Operations troops killed on missions or in training.
Carney
said he expects that commanders at
Fort
Bragg
will conduct a review of how troops and their families were handled as
they returned from
Afghanistan
to "try to figure out where they missed signals, and hopefully
avoid future problems."
"We
don't have reason to think it was stress-related," said Ben Abel,
spokesman for the U.S.
Army Special Operations Command, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
However, psychologists are almost certain the crimes are
stress-related.
“Given
the facts of the soldiers returning from
Afghanistan
, the short time intervals among the four murders, I believe stress is
a decisive element here,” Egyptian psychologist Amr Abu Khalil told
IslamOnline Saturday.
“War,
in general, is one of the major driving forces leading to stress. War
in
Afghanistan
, with all the surrounding moral and human elements, for sure
constitutes a heavy-weight psychological stress on any human being. If
those soldiers, who had to carry out military orders without
questioning, thought about the high toll of civilian death, the motive
behind that war, it is more than likely for them to suffer tremendous
stress.
“This
brings to mind the refusal of many Israeli soldiers to serve in
Palestinian occupied territories. Armies are not formed to kill and
humiliate civilians. Soldiers believe deep down that they are
protecting their homelands. So, when they have to fight highly
controversial battles, like the case in Afghanistan or the Middle East
conflict, they are bound to fall victims of deep psychological
disturbances that may lead to anything,” Abu Khalil added.
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