Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner said at the same press conference that some military personnel involved in the airstrike had violated standard U.S. rules of engagement, saying that the U.S. military was committed to ensuring full accountability while protecting the identities of those involved.
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“U.S. forces would never intentionally [strike] a hospital”, Campbell said.
At least 31 people, including 12 staff of the Doctors without Border were reported killed and 28 others were injured in the airstrike, which was marked on of the worst incidents of civilian casualties in the 14-year history of the USA war effort in Afghanistan.
Army Gen. John Campbell, the top USA commander in Afghanistan, announced on Wednesday that multiple US service members have been suspended over the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
MSF has said that staff within the compound frantically attempted to contact US and Afghan commanders during the attack. The U.S.is also rebuilding the hospital.
U.S. forces will offer their assistance to MSF in rebuilding the hospital, the only trauma centre in the region, he said. According to NYT, a 3,000-page investigative file has been prepared to try and answer the questions of what led to the attack on that day on the Afghan MSF hospital. The American AC-130 gunship thought the description relayed to him matched the building, which turned out to be the hospital.
The us military now says that an air strike on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan last month was a mistake.
The aid group has called for an independent worldwide inquiry into the airstrike, by a body set up under the Geneva Conventions, but USA and Afghan officials have refused to allow that to proceed. “General Campbell has already directed a thorough review of the process”, he said.
Now, a United States report into what went wrong has ruled that it was a tragic and avoidable accident caused primarily by human error.
It is believed the hospital had been mistaken for a Taliban-seized building.
The military officers significantly associated with the attack have been suspended.
“Tragically, this misidentification continued throughout the remainder of the operation even though there were contradictory indicators”, Campbell said.
A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation statement released hours after the attack did not confirm the hospital was targeted, characterising it instead as “collateral damage” as Afghan forces came under fire. But faulty planning and procedures to approve airstrikes, as well as the absence of a single system to vet proposed targets against a no-strikes list, compounded the mistake, he said.
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“The investigation found that the actions of the aircrew and the Special Operations commander were not appropriate to the threats that they faced”, Shoffner said.
