Afghans requested strike that hit MSF Kunduz clinic

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday that at least 39 civilians – including eight children – had been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria since Wednesday, Reuters reported.

President Barack Obama offered condolences to the victims of what he called “the tragic incident”.

The United States is investigating what happened. “This amounts to an admission of a war crime”.

Residents of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz began venturing out of their homes as calm returned to the streets on Monday, officials and residents said, in the first signs of normalcy following the deadly Taliban blitz last week that captured and held Kunduz for three days.

“We have now learned that on October 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from USA forces“, Campbell said.

The USA military had previously said the hospital may have been “collateral damage”.

Afghan officials said that when the hospital was attacked there were Taliban fighters inside of it shooting at the U.Sl and Afghan troops.

The group said all parties in the conflict were aware of the hospital’s location because it had provided the Global Positioning System coordinates in advance. Another 37 people were wounded.

“There are no words for how bad it was”.

MSF has pulled its staff out of Kunduz.

Global staff members have since been evacuated to Kabul and critical patients sent to other facilities.

“All the people who were there – and there were up to 180 – either they were patients or staff”.

The Afghan and USA governments have pledged a full investigation, which could take a few days. The Defense Department has started an investigation, and will “await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgment as to the circumstances of this tragedy”, the statement said.

Doctors Without Borders/Medecines Sans Frontieres, whose hospital was bombed later this week, in a statement called for an independent investigation.

Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières, issued a statement Sunday expressing its “clear assumption that a war crime has been committed”, after earlier saying that “all indications” were that the global coalition was responsible for the early Saturday morning bombing.

The medical aid organization called the bombing a “war crime” in an online statement Sunday.

“You can not, under the laws of war, attack sites such as hospitals, schools, religious buildings”, said Gregory Steven Gordon, an associate professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The bombs left part of the MSF trauma hospital in flames and rubble. It said the attack lasted more than 30 minutes after it alerted military officials in Kabul and Washington by phone that it was under fire. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said USA forces had carried out a bombardment in the “vicinity” of the clinic without being more specific.

But the Afghan leader will be torn between distancing himself from Washington and the need for American firepower to help his forces drive insurgents out of Kunduz.

But the fighting in Kunduz city, the capital of Kunduz province, has taken a heavy toll on civilians.

Liu said the hospital was used only by staff and patients and protected by a guard.