The top coalition commander in Afghanistan said Monday that Afghan forces coming under fire from Taliban insurgents requested help prior to a USA airstrike that hit a hospital in the northern city of Kunduz this weekend, killing 22 people.
Advertisement
MSF has aggressively challenged the USA military and Afghan government’s account of the strike, which killed at least 12 of their staff and 10 patients – among them three children.
“We have now learned that on October 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from USA forces”, said John Campbell, commander of USA forces in Afghanistan, at a Pentagon briefing, adding that initial reports of USA forces in Afghanistan asking for air support were incorrect.
Gen Campbell said the strike was carried out from an AC-130 gunship but declined to give further details, including the rules of engagement under which United States forces were operating.
“We demand an immediate objective investigation into the events and the punishment of those responsible for the tragedy”, the ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an online statement published Monday.
US Army Brigadier General Richard Kim has been assigned as the senior investigator on the incident and is in Kunduz now.
He restated that the 9,800 US troops serving as trainers in Afghanistan are not directly fighting the Taliban.
“These statements imply that Afghan and U.S. 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”, MSF said.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it had withdrawn from Kunduz after the hospital was badly damaged.
MSF said Saturday that it had given its coordinates to both sides involved in the fighting, including Washington and Kabul. Doctors Without Borders was one of the last providers of medical services in the region, and its hospital was the only free trauma-care facility in northern Afghanistan.
In an apparent attempt to justify the strike, Afghan officials have begun saying there were Taliban insurgents on the south side of the hospital.
The medical aid organization called the bombing a “war crime” in an online statement Sunday.
MSF said another 30 people were missing after the incident.
The third category was the subject of the most intense debate, as officials anxious that requests from the Afghans could drag USA troops back into daily, open-ended combat. Clashes were still underway between government forces and the Taliban on the city’s outskirts on Monday, according to Khosh Mohammad, a member of the Kunduz provincial council. It also said the airstrike lasted for 30 minutes after it tried to inform forces it was being hit.
Advertisement
Liu said the hospital was used only by staff and patients and protected by a guard. But the civilian toll is feared to be heavy, with residents having to live without food, water or electricity for much of the past week.
