The US bombing attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was grotesque, lasting more than half an hour and burning people alive – medical staff and patients alike – in the kind of facility that worldwide rules of war recognize as a safe haven.
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According to The Associated Press, intelligence analysts had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled.
Doctors without Borders disputes that the hospital was being used by the Taliban for military purposes.
Immediately after the incident the Pentagon said the strike was called in because US troops on the ground were taking fire.
The bombing happened as Afghan forces battled Taliban insurgents who had stormed Kunduz on September 28 and briefly held the city of 300,000, the first provincial capital they have overrun since being forced from power in 2001.
Doctors Without Borders, which has closed the hospital it opened in 2011, is justified in calling for a full, independent and transparent investigation.
The Defense Department, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Afghan government are conducting parallel investigations of the attack, while MSF has called for an inquiry by the global Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, or IHFFC, a never-before-used investigative commission under the Geneva conventions. Although Campbell said the Afghan forces requested the air support, the decision to provide it and the approval of the target came from within the US command.
During a speech on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry lauded US efforts to improve Afghanistan’s health care system as he defended the Obama administration’s plans to keep thousands of American troops in the country beyond a previous 2016 deadline. The medical relief organization is within its rights to seek that independent assessment, and the US government should cooperate. Military officials declined to answer questions, citing the investigation. According to reporter Ken Dilanian, U.S. special forces analysts were investigating the hospital for Taliban links before the bombing, and knew it was a hospital – but it’s not clear if this is related to the airstrike, or whether the commanders responsible for the strike had access to their intelligence.
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It would be significant if US intelligence had concluded that Pakistani spies were continuing to play an active role helping the Taliban. Even after the Central Intelligence Agency assessed that a few civilians were killed in the strike, Pentagon officials continued to insist that all those hit were combatants.
