by the CIA and involving US and South Vietnamese security forces, was aimed at destroying the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong. The program killed 26,369 to 41,000 people, with an unknown number being innocent civilians. Torture and ill-treatment were frequently applied by the South Vietnamese to POWs as well as civilian prisoners. During their visit to the Con Son Prison in 1970, U.S. congressmen Augustus F. Hawkins and William R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute "tiger cages" or chained to their cells, and provided with poor-quality food. A group of American doctors inspecting the prison in the same year found many inmates suffering symptoms resulting from forced immobility and torture. During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities. Torture was conducted by the South Vietnamese government in collusion with the CIA. South Korean forces were also accused of war crimes. One documented event was the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre where the 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly killed between 69 and 79 civilians on 12 February 1968 in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất village, Điện Bàn District, Quảng Nam Province. South Korean forces are also accused of perpetrating other massacres, namely: Bình Hòa massacre, Binh Tai Massacre and Hà My massacre. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", based on the definition of terrorists as a non-state actor, and examining targeted killings and civilian deaths which are estimated at over 18,000 from 1966 to 1969. The US Department of Defense estimates the VC/PAVN had conducted 36,000 murders and almost 58,000 kidnappings from 1967 to 1972, c. 1973. Benjamin Valentino attributes 45,000–80,000 "terrorist mass killings" to the Viet Cong during the war. Statistics for 1968–1972 suggest that "about 80 percent of the terrorist victims were ordinary civilians and only about 20 percent were government officials, policemen, members of the self-defence forces or pacification cadres." Viet Cong tactics included the frequent mortaring of civilians in refugee camps, and the placing of mines on highways frequented by villagers taking their goods to urban markets. Some mines were set only to go