Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called for an investigation into an attack on a hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on Saturday, blaming the USA military for the deaths of more than 20 civilians.
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U.S. Air Force General John Campbell now says it was Afghan units that called the strike in.
“These statements imply that Afghan and USA forces working together chose to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital with more than 180 staff and patients inside because they claim that members of the Taliban were present”, he said.
In a separate statement, Doctors Without Borders maintained that “not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the MSF hospital compound prior to the USA airstrike on Saturday morning”.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Sunday it has closed the trauma centre, seen as a lifeline in a war-battered region with scant medical care, and demanded an independent probe into Saturday’s devastating air raid.
The question is no longer whether the MSF hospital in Kunduz was hit by USA airstrikes.
In response to Campbell’s remarks, the organization’s general director, Christopher Stokes, said the USA had admitted that it attacked the facility.
The USA military had previously said the hospital may have been “collateral damage”. “There can be no justification for this terrible attack”.
“We’re going to do everything we can for this case to be open and transparent….”
Separately, the NATO-led coalition said it expected the results of a preliminary multinational investigation in the coming days.
The USA is investigating the incident.
U.S. Army Brigadier General Richard Kim is the senior investigator on the incident and is in Kunduz now, Campbell said.
So United States forces proceeded with the strike, which led to several civilians being “accidentally struck”, he said.
“If errors were committed we will acknowledge them and hold accountable those responsible.”
If there are other investigations out there that need to go on, we’ll make sure we’ll coordinate those as well. He also told reporters that the protocols for training and support that the US provides for Afghan forces have not changed.
It said the hospital was hit despite the fact it had informed U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan forces of its location a number of times to avoid being hit in the crossfire. MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, is a private charity which treats patients around the world regardless of politics, religion, or ethnicity, and says that, as the only hospital in the area, it had taken in 394 patients since Monday, when fighting broke out in Kunduz after the Taliban captured the city.
Adopting new tactics, Taliban fighters have been firing at security forces at checkpoints and then melting away into residential areas, rather than directly engaging in gun battles, said Hamdullah Danishi, acting governor of the northern city.
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Campbell, whose headquarters is in Kabul, was in Washington on Monday because he is testifying before two congressional committees this week.
