Some in U.S. military suspended for Afghan hospital attack

“The U.S. version of events presented today leaves MSF with more questions than answers”, Christopher Stokes, the organization’s general director, said in a written statement.

The findings were set to be officially announced by US General John Campbell at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Kabul at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday local time (1430 GMT). However, MSF has said the assault lasted for more than an hour.

Later General Campbell suggested that Afghan forces had called in the strike, before offering a fourth account in four days admitting U.S. special forces had been in touch with the aircraft.

The US military offered several conflicting explanations for the deadly attack, at first saying there had been a strike “in the vicinity” of the hospital that might have “resulted in collateral damage”.

At the time, US officials did not explain how such a mistake was possible. Neither Shoffner or Campbell would comment on the possibility of the US agreeing to such an investigation.

A U.S. military inquiry has blamed “human error” for an air strike on a Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, as American authorities admitted that the tragedy could have been avoided.

Additionally, US Special Operations Forces on the ground who were called on to confirm the strike’s target, were unable to get “eyes on” the nearby Taliban stronghold, due to the heavy fighting in the area which had intensified in recent months as a result of the Taliban making significant gains against North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan security forces. That was instead the MSF compound. That meant the aircraft launched without a mission briefing.

The command center knew those coordinates belonged to the hospital – which was on a no-strike list – but nobody put two and two together. The crew on the plane then made a decision to just attack the next closest thing, which was the hospital.

Campbell and Shoffner did not address previous claims by military officials that the Taliban had taken over the hospital, but the Associated Press reports that a summary of one of the investigations states there is no evidence to support the claim.

Rather than waiting for electronic systems to recover or checking with headquarters, a pilot reported that he was able to see the target a few hundred meters away. But the crew was “fixated on the physical description”, Campbell says, and did not pay attention to the corrected grid coordinates.

During the 25-minute period of airstrike, the U.S. warplane fired 211 shells at the hospital compound despite the continued efforts by the MSF to contact USA military personnel. But it’s unclear exactly what those consequences might be.

“Some US individuals did violate the rules of engagement”.

MSF described the attack as a war crime and demanded a thorough investigation.