WASHINGTON — A Marine company involved in the shooting of civilians in Afghanistan in March responded appropriately to an ambush and should not have been pulled out of the country, the commander of Marine Corps special forces said Thursday.
Marine Maj. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, head of Marine Corps Special Operations Command, also told reporters that a legal tribunal investigating the incident has been postponed until mid-January.
“Obviously it was not my decision to bring the company out of theater,” Hejlik said. “It was the theater commander’s decision. I will never second- guess the commander on the ground. I will say, I did not agree with it. To this day, I do not agree with it.”
Eight members of the Marine Corps company involved in the March 4 shooting — which left as many as 19 civilians dead and 50 injured — were ordered back to Camp Lejeune, N.C., and the rest of the company was told to leave Afghanistan and return to ships in the Persian Gulf.
Hejlik, however, stopped short of clearing the Marines of any blame in the incident, saying he could not speak to what may have happened after the initial ambush, when the unit was returning to base.
A preliminary military investigation found that the Marines used excessive force and referred it for possible criminal inquiry.
Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission said in a report that the troops fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and people in cars, buses and taxis in six different locations along a 10-mile stretch of road in Nangahar province after an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into their convoy.
