Oregon Public Broadcasting

A 19-year old from Idaho is among five Washington-based soldiers now charged with murdering civilians in Afghanistan.

The Army announced premeditated murder charges Wednesday against four of the soldiers, and released some details of the alleged crimes. Austin Jenkins reports.

Army Private First Class Andrew Holmes of Boise is charged with one count of premeditated murder.

According to Army charging documents, Holmes threw a fragmentary grenade at an Afghan civilian named Gul Mudin and shot him with a rifle. Two other soldiers are also accused of participating in that murder.

All told, five soldiers are charged in connection with the deaths of three innocent civilians earlier this year.

The two other victims are Marach Agha and Mullah Adahda.

Eugene Fidell teaches military law at Yale University. He says while not unprecedented, these allegations of murder in a war zone stand out.

Eugene Fidell: "It sounds like it will be one of the major prosecutions of this decade, let's say. The government is certain to want to investigate this to a fare thee well. It comes at a terrible time."

That's because, Fidell says, support at home for the war in Afghanistan is waning and American forces are struggling to win the trust of the Afghans.

Four of the accused are jailed at Joint Base Lewis McChord near Tacoma. The fifth will arrive from Kuwait any day.

One of the soldiers is also charged with trying to destroy a computer hard drive containing evidence of the crimes.

All of the soldiers are members of the same company in the hard hit 5th Stryker Brigade now concluding a one-year deployment to Afghanistan.