The Shinwar Shooting or Shinwar Massacre[1] was the alleged killing of a number of Afghan civilians on 4 March 2007, in the village of Spinpul,[2] in the Shinwar District of the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. United States Marines, fleeing the scene of a car bomb attack and ambush by Afghan militants, fired on people and vehicles surrounding them, according to initial reports, killing as many as 19 civilians and injuring around 50 more.[3] A later U.S. Navy investigation found that between 5 and 7 adult men were killed, and 2 civilians, a 16-year-old boy and a woman, were injured.[4] However, the exact figures remain unknown, as U.S. Military Police did not find any dead or wounded civilians when they arrived 30 minutes after the shooting.[5]
The United States Marine Corps began an internal inquiry in January 2008. In May, "no criminal charges were brought against any officer, although some did receive an "administrative reprimand."[6] All involved troops were subsequently issued Combat Action Ribbons, and one gunner was issued a Purple Heart. The report was condemned by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission[7] and by the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.[8] Further revelations in 2010 led employees of Amnesty International and the International Bar Association to assert that there was prima facie, or superficial evidence that international humanitarian law had been violated, but could not speculate further without knowing the details of the inquiry.[9]
In 2019 the Board for Correction of Naval Records recommended the platoon's Marine commander be retroactively promoted to lieutenant colonel with back pay, and the board criticized the 2007 senior commanders who failed to "respond appropriately to an enemy information operation and stand by the troops."
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
named-as-massacrewas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Carlotta Gall (8 April 2014). The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001–2014. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-544-04568-2.
The thirty-man platoon was hit by a suicide car bomb in the midst of heavy traffic at a village called Spinpul.
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