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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoctors Without Borders airstrike: US alters story for fourth time in four days (admits war crime)
US special operations forces – not their Afghan allies – called in the deadly airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, the US commander has conceded.Shortly before General John Campbell, the commander of the US and Nato war in Afghanistan, testified to a Senate panel, the president of Doctors Without Borders – also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – said the US and Afghanistan had made an “admission of a war crime”.
Shifting the US account of the Saturday morning airstrike for the fourth time in as many days, Campbell reiterated that Afghan forces had requested US air cover after being engaged in a “tenacious fight” to retake the northern city of Kunduz from the Taliban. But, modifying the account he gave at a press conference on Monday, Campbell said those Afghan forces had not directly communicated with the US pilots of an AC-130 gunship overhead.
“Even though the Afghans request that support, it still has to go through a rigorous US procedure to enable fires to go on the ground. We had a special operations unit that was in close vicinity that was talking to the aircraft that delivered those fires,” Campbell told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday morning.
The airstrike on the hospital is among the worst and most visible cases of civilian deaths caused by US forces during the 14-year Afghanistan war that Barack Obama has declared all but over. It killed 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, who had sought medical treatment after the Taliban overran Kunduz last weekend. Three children died in the airstrike that came in multiple waves and burned patients alive in their beds.
On Tuesday, MSF denounced Campbell’s press conference as an attempt to shift blame to the Afghans.
“The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition,” said its director general, Christopher Stokes.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/06/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-afghanistan-us-account-changes-again
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gratuitous
(82,849 posts)The flight crew was just following orders, so they're safe. The folks who ordered the massacre can't really be held responsible, because chain of command or something. The Taliban might have been using the hospital for cover, except they weren't, which is just what you'd expect from those ultra-sneaky terrorists.
Some colonel will have to forego his general's star, or get it and be forced into early retirement. So, you know, that will be real sad, and show just how seriously our military takes war crimes.
silverweb
(16,402 posts)
morningfog
(18,115 posts)No one here wants to even think about it.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)by the USAF knowing the entire time it was an MSF hospital?
U.S. Air Command intentionally made a battle plan for an MSF hospital, briefed the flight crew and sortied an AC-130 solely for that purpose?
bemildred
(90,061 posts);
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)In the VOA story Campbell said an airstrike was requested because hostiles were reported firing from the building, which isn't the same thing as "Let's go bomb that hospital that doesn't have any enemies around for a ten mile radius."
So clearly someone is lying if there weren't any hostiles -- Either the men on the ground or USAF command...Which is it?
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)KABUL, Afghanistan — Reports from Afghan security officials and local residents in Kunduz on Tuesday sharply contradicted testimony by the American military commander, Gen. John F. Campbell, that most of the city had been retaken from the Taliban.
By the end of the day Tuesday, according to local residents, the Taliban’s white flag was once again hanging on the flagpole over Chowk Square, and half of the city was again under Taliban control. The insurgents continued to fight pitched street battles against Afghan forces, and pressed into service armored Humvees and pickup trucks they had seized from the troops.
During his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on Tuesday, General Campbell played down the significance of the Taliban’s gains in taking Kunduz, the first provincial capital and largest city to fall to the insurgents in 14 years of fighting. He said that the continued fighting had been relegated to isolated pockets in the city, and the Taliban “for the most part melted away, left the city.”
Public assessments issued by Afghan leaders on Tuesday mostly lined up with General Campbell’s portrayal. “The enemy was pushed out of the city yesterday, the Afghan security forces, especially the Afghan National Army, recaptured the city yesterday,” said Lt. Gen. Afzal Aman, director of operations for the Afghan Ministry of Defense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/middleeast/disputing-us-general-afghans-say-taliban-control-kunduz.html?_r=0
bemildred
(90,061 posts)WASHINGTON: The U.S. Department of Justice will investigate the deadly air strike that hit a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, joining other probes being conducted by thePentagon, NATO and a U.S.-Afghan team, the White House said on Tuesday.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said more still needs to be learned about how the air strike on the hospital happened and that President Barack Obama expects steps will be taken to prevent such an incident from recurring.
http://www.thecairopost.com/news/170442/news/white-house-doj-will-also-probe-air-strike-on-afghan-hospital
bemildred
(90,061 posts)ROME — Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the Defense Department “deeply regrets the loss of innocent lives” from a U.S. military airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan.
Responding to what officials said was an Afghan request, a U.S. gunship on Saturday fired on a medical clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz (KUHN’-dooz). Afghans are battling to recapture the city from the Taliban. More than 20 people have died from the airstrike and dozens were wounded.
Carter issued a statement from Rome, saying the U.S. military “takes the greatest care” to prevent civilian casualties “and when we make mistakes we own up to them. That’s exactly what we’re doing right now.”
Earlier Tuesday, the top commander in Afghanistan told Congress the airstrike was a mistake.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/carter-deeply-regrets-afghanistan-hospital-attack/2015/10/06/d4406536-6c60-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html
