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'I Remember Them Screaming': Afghans Detail Alleged Killings By Australian Military

Afghans are coming forward to describe past alleged killings by Australian forces, as the Australian government launches investigations into its troops' suspected war crimes in Afghanistan.
Australia has sent more than 25,000 troops, 3,000 of them special forces, in rotations from 2005 to 2016 to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. An Australia military inquiry report said it found credible information of suspected unlawful killings of civilians and efforts to cover up the incidents.

Editor's note: This story includes details of violence that readers may find disturbing.

KABUL, Afghanistan — When it started, the boy had been dozing on a mat in a room crammed with family visiting for a wedding. When it ended, his uncle and five other relatives, including small children, were dead.

Ras-Mohammad Dost recounts what happened late that night in February 2009 when Australian elite forces approached his family's compound in Surkh Murghab in southern Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. Dost estimates he's now 22 years old, which would have made him about 10 at the time.

He heard the military vehicles rumbling as they approached. And then, "I remember them screaming," he says of the troops outside. "I remember the dogs barking. I remember when they hit the door."

His uncle Morlah, also known as Amrullah (many Afghans traditionally don't use a last name), thought the family was under attack but didn't know by whom, Dost says. So he grabbed a gun and started shooting at the forces — which led to

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