Despite Defense Department statements, concerning images of Afghans remain online.
In early July, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service began to release photos featuring the faces and names of Afghan allies and citizens interacting with U.S. service members. Following my report on the disastrous oversight, the Pentagon claimed it had addressed the error.
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A Defense Department spokesperson told Task & Purpose that around 1,400 images were “unintentionally made publicly accessible during a routine archival data transfer.” The spokesperson claimed that “all affected images have since been removed and are no longer accessible online.”
Unfortunately, this is incorrect.
A number of the DVIDS images I addressed in last week’s report remain online. The most damning shows two members of the Afghan National Army on a training mission in the United States. Their names and the name of another ANA member are included in the photo description and article. In the last two days, I have located a number of other images rereleased in July that show Afghan commandos and Special Forces personnel, people known to be especially targeted in the Taliban’s reprisals.
Another group subject to killings is Afghan legal professionals, who played a vital role in prosecuting Taliban members for their crimes. The Association for Prosecuting Attorneys has tracked 53 killings of legal targets, mostly prosecutors, since the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal. That’s relevant because one rereleased DVIDS photo shows a former female Afghan judge, identified by first name. Several DVIDS articles with July rerelease dates also name chief judges, prosecutors, and military legal professionals.
Former legal professionals qualify for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which is suspended by executive order. Many moved to Pakistan for safety and to be processed, but amid a stalled program and Pakistan’s mass deportations of Afghans, some at-risk prosecutors have been forcibly deported to their homeland, where they are at extreme risk.
Among other discoveries on DVIDS during the last two days are photos rereleased in June labeled “REQUEST REMOVAL BY UNIT.” One such photo shows several Afghan children interacting with military personnel whose locations are described. In searching for rereleased photos that endanger our allies, I also found a number of photos that were not archived in November 2021, when DVIDS temporarily took 137,000 photos and videos offline out of “an abundance of caution.”
I have found additional troubling content that was never archived. One picture shows Marines from a Female Engagement Team speaking with local women in a province in the Taliban’s heartland. Though their Afghan interpreter is not pictured, the accompanying article provides the interpreter’s first and last name and the subdistrict and time period during which she operated.
Other Afghans whose stories I have covered have been forced to flee the country in fear of death for less.
I asked the Pentagon why some photos of allies remain online despite statements that all affected pictures have been removed. I also inquired about how many unarchived photos DVIDS has removed. I received no response.
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Though the scope of the DVIDS error is unknown, the information available presents a very poor reflection on the Defense Department. We should at least be doing all we can to protect those who fought and served beside us.
Our allies deserve better. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should wake up and tell someone to get a grip on this matter.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into nearly two decades of war and the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.