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By Sean Rayment
Hundreds of US veterans wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan along with families of those killed in combat are taking legal action against a telecommunications company accused of paying protection money to insurgents.
More than 500 American families and their lawyers claim MTN Group, South Africa’s largest telecom operator, paid off gunmen in both Iraq and Afghanistan so the company could operate unhindered by insurgent attacks.
Lawyers representing US families and wounded veterans claim the protection money was used to buy weapons and ammunition which was subsequently used to attack members of the US armed forces.
In one attack named in legal documents up to nine US soldiers were killed and several more were wounded.
MTN is now facing a grand jury investigation into allegations that it breached US anti-terror laws.
The investigation is being viewed as a significant victory for the veterans who began their legal action in 2019.
MTN Group confirmed it was contacted through its US legal counsel regarding a grand jury probe into its former Afghan subsidiary and its 49 per cent stake in Iran’s Irancell, which is partially government-owned.
MTN said it is cooperating fully and maintains it has complied with all laws.
The investigation follows civil lawsuits filed in US courts by American veterans and families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The veterans allege MTN’s involvement in Irancell indirectly supported militias hostile to US forces. MTN has denied the claims.
MTN entered Iran in 2006 and operated in Afghanistan until 2021. During that period it is alleged that MTN paid protection money to the Taliban in Afghanistan and to Iranian militias in southern Iraq.
Over the same time period, hundreds of British troops were also killed and wounded fighting insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
British veterans or families of the dead would not be able to join the current US legal claim against MTN. But legal sources in the US have told National Security News they should consider their own legal action.
One of the victims named in the lawsuit is Lt. Col. David Cabrera, who had earned a Ph.D. in social work and was serving as a therapist in the US Army when he volunteered for duty in Afghanistan.
“He was trying to do what he did best, which was to help soldiers,” his wife, August Cabrera, said in an interview.
The officer had been in Afghanistan a month when his convoy was hit by a suicide car bomb on Oct. 29, 2011, killing him and more than a dozen others.
Ms Cabrera, who now lives in Texas, said she believes the legal action will dissuade future abuses. “This will change the way business is done in war zones,” she said. “I believe that this can bring justice to those of us who have lost somebody.”
Other US personnel killed in action and named in the US lawsuit include PFC Brandon Kreische, who died in July 2019 in Afghanistan in an insider attack. PL Jason M. Bogar — died Jul 13, 2008 (Afghanistan).
The families of several US personnel who were all killed in July 2008 in Afghanistan in the same attack are also taking action. They are LT Jonathan P. Brostrom; Sgt. Israel Garcia, 24,: Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers, 24: Cpl. Jason M. Bogar, 25: Cpl. Jason D. Hovater, 24: Cpl. Matthew B. Phillips, 27: Cpl. Pruitt A. Rainey, 22: Cpl. Gunnar W. Zwilling, 20.
The above personnel were all killed when a force of over 200 Taliban fighters attacked a remote combat outpost near the village of Wanat, near the country’s border with Pakistan.
Heavily armed enemy fighters fought their way onto the newly established base known as Combat Outpost Kahler. The Americans and Afghans, numbering fewer than 100, fought back, defending their post and calling in airstrikes.
When the fighting stopped, the enemy had suffered heavy casualties, with reports of more than 100 killed or wounded.
Lawyer Ryan Sparacino of the law firm Sparacino PLLC, told National Security News that more than 500 American families have brought Antiterrorism Act claims against MTN Group.
He said: “505 American families have brought Antiterrorism Act claims against MTN Group.”
“While MTN Group partnered with the Iranian regime from 2006 through 2020, more than 500 nationals of the United Kingdom – mostly service members – died in Iraq and Afghanistan. If I were the loved one of such a person, I would strongly consider speaking with qualified UK attorney to determine my legal rights, if any.”
In 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that protection money was a major source of funding for the Taliban. In 2010, a congressional report entitled Warlord, Inc. concluded that payments were systematically funding warlords, corrupt officials and likely the Taliban itself.
In 2011, the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan wrote in its final report to Congress that poor planning, management and oversight damaged US objectives and cited payments by Afghan contractors to insurgent groups for protection as particularly alarming.
