Doctors Without Borders withdrew from the Afghan city of Kunduz, a day after the hospital where the aid group had been treating war wounded came under attack from what the USA military said may have been its aircraft. He said he learned from the investigator that it was the Afghans, not the Americans, who requested the airstrike.
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Airstrikes have been a point of contention between Afghan authorities and the US military throughout the 14 years since the Taliban’s regime was ousted in a USA invasion in 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Kunduz has seen its share of mistaken bombings, notably in September 2009, when German forces called in a US airstrike that killed more than 90 civilians.
The USA military has supported the Afghan army by ground and air in Kunduz since the Taliban battled its way into the northern city a week ago.
“The Afghans advised that they were taking fire”, Gen. John Campbell told reporters at the Pentagon, in a hastily called press conference to correct the record.
A key question is whether President Barack Obama will alter his plan for reducing the USA troop presence from its current level of about 9,800 to leave only an embassy-based security cooperation office after 2016.
Campbell, who spoke at the Pentagon, and said three investigations are underway.
“His expectation is that details won’t be…whitewashed…so that if it’s necessary to take steps to prevent something like this from ever happening again, that those reforms are implemented promptly and effectively”, Earnest said. At least 22 people are dead and Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), is demanding an independent and transparent investigation into the strike.
“Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient”, a statement today from MSF General Director Christopher Stokes said.
The main building housing the intensive care unit and emergency rooms was “repeatedly, very precisely” hit nearly every 15 minutes for more than an hour, MSF said. The hospital is badly damaged and now the region has no comparable medical treatment center.
Following the strike, the Afghan defence ministry claimed that “armed terrorists” were using the hospital “as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians”. Government forces claim that they have retaken strategic points in the city, although local reports indicate that the Taliban is still firmly holding sway in many parts. “The hospital was full of MSF staff, patients and their caretakers”, he said. “If there’s other investigations out there that need to go on, we’ll make sure we coordinate those as well”, he said.
The Afghan government has been struggling to combat the Taliban since the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation assumed support and training role by the end of 2014, which officially marked the end of their combat mission in the country.
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“The bombs hit and then we heard the plane circle around”, said Heman Nagarathnam, an MSF staffer in written testimony. “This amounts to an admission of a war crime”.
