Gen Campbell described an egregious series of human and technical failures that led to what he called a “tragic mistake”.
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A USA aircraft attacked a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic in the Afghan city of Kunduz because of “human error”, a U.S. military inquiry says.
“The medical facility was misidentified as a target by USA forces who believed they were striking a different target several hundred meters away”, Campbell said, calling that a result of “multiple errors”.
Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner, spokesman for the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, added: “We did not intentionally hit the hospital and we are heartbroken about what happened”.
The airstrikes were a response to the Taliban’s recapture of Kunduz while the hospital had been sheltering Taliban fighters when it was struck.
American soldiers and airmen involved in the errant airstrike on an Afghan hospital have been suspended while awaiting disciplinary action, USA military officials have said.
“It is shocking that an attack can be carried out when USA forces have neither eyes on a target nor access to a no-strike list, and have malfunctioning communications systems”, expressed MSF’s Stokes, while also saying that the tragedy demonstrated a “gross negligence” from the U.S. Forces.
Thirty-three people are still missing days after a USA air strike on an Afghan hospital, the medical charity has warned, sparking fears the death toll could rise significantly. Once bombing began several frantic calls were made to the USA government to cease the strikes, but by the time word reached the gunship, it was too late, the strike was over and 30 people had been killed with another 37 wounded.
The U.S. forces then looked for a target that was visually similar to the one they had originally sought – the former National Directorate of Security headquarters in Kunduz, which they believed was occupied by insurgents.
The report released today details that United States forces were unaware that the Doctors Without Borders hospital was mistakenly in their crosshairs.
“This was a tragic but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error”, Gen. John Campbell told reporters. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Afghan army said they were also conducting their own investigations into the incident. US President Barack Obama had already apologized for the bombing of the hospital and taken full responsibility, but MSF still called for an global humanitarian commission to investigate the attack.
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Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said: “The basic tenets of the USA law of war that every USA force member is taught from basic training onwards includes the principles of proportionality and distinction”.
