• Hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops
• Covert unit hunts leaders for 'kill or capture'
• Steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on Nato
• Read the Guardian's full war logs investigation

The war logs reveal civilian killings by coalition forces, secret efforts to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, and discuss the
involvement of Iran and Pakistan in supporting insurgents. Photograph:
Max Whittaker/Corbis

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and
intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers'
website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel,
give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years,
which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than
1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops
hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul
on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt
and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation
of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000
civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing"
under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the
time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December
2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information
by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and
partner service members at risk and threatens our national security.
Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these
documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of
Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians
exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents.

Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have
led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously
unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting
unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect
themselves from suicide bombers.

At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is
likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted
from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then
collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day
French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A
US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its
passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a
wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by UK troops also figure. The US compilers
detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in Kabul in the
space of barely a month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the
death of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote:
"Investigation controlled by the British. We are not able to get [sic]
complete story."

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