The attack occurred as Afghanistan security forces, supported by the US military, attempted to recapture Kunduz from insurgents fighting in the city. “Praying for you all”.
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US President Barack Obama has admitted the strike was a mistake, but the Pentagon has offered shifting explanations for what exactly went wrong. The hospital was fully under the control of the MSF staff, according to report. At least thirty people were killed in the airstrikes, including 13 staff members, 10 patients and 7 unrecognizable bodies yet to be identified. “There are still many unanswered questions, including who took the final decision, who gave the targeting instructions for the hospital”. “Those responsible for requesting, ordering and approving the airstrikes hold these answers”.
MSF said the raid by an American AC-130 gunship, which occurred after the Taliban’s brief but bloody capture of Kunduz, lasted around an hour despite repeated messages to military officials in Kabul and Washington that were listed in the report in chilling detail.
The document, part of an ongoing review of events undertaken by MSF, is based upon sixty debriefings of MSF national and global employees who worked at the 140-bed trauma center, internal and public information, before and after photographs of the hospital, email correspondence, and telephone call records.
“According to all accounts the US airstrikes started between 2:00 a.m. and 2:08 a.m. on 3 October”. The MSF report provides strong evidence that regardless of who called in the strike, there was no conceivable reason the hospital should have been targeted.
Medical aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday it was hard to believe a USA strike on an Afghan hospital last month was a mistake, as it had reports of fleeing people being shot from an aircraft.
It also detailed operations in the hospital in the days leading up to the bombing, and said staff had noticed that more Taliban fighters were arriving for treatment.
Dr. Deane Marchbein, president of the board of directors for the USA arm of the group, said the concern wasn’t whether someone obeyed the chain of command but rather how governments view laws dealing with humanitarian issues. He declined to be more specific with a time table.
Campbell said he does not want to comment on the specifics of what happened that night until the investigation is complete, citing a desire to uphold its integrity. “I will be very open and transparent with everything I can be to make sure we learn from that and that we tell the world what happened and why it happened”.
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Campbell said that an global investigation is “never, ever done” in circumstances like this. The United States typically runs its own probe known in military parlance as a “15-6 investigation”, after the military regulation that lays out the rules for investigating officers. “And we’re doing that”.
