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

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 a brutal retaliation. Soldiers threw two grenades into the house. Morlah was killed, alongside his sister, who was about 18 years old, his son, about 8, his 2-year-old daughter, and two of Morlah's nephews, who Dost guesses were around 7 and 8.