Doctors Without Borders Hospital Attack, Result of Human Error

US officials said that the Special Operations troops did not follow the rules of engagement.

People fleeing the main building were cut down by gunfire that appeared to track their movements, while a patient trying to escape in a wheelchair was killed by shrapnel, the MSF report said.

A non-binding resolution passed by a show of hands said parliament “supports an independent investigation into the attack on the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz and calls for the neutrality of hospitals and medical facilities to be respected”.

In the early hours of October 3, 2015, a USA helicopter gunship attacked a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz killing 30 people and injuring dozens more, in one of the worst civilian-casualty incidents of the war in Afghanistan.

In the days after the attack, the United States military offered a series of shifting explanations before President Barack Obama admitted in a call to MSF chief Joanne Liu that it had been a mistake and apologised. “This U.S. investigation did not ignore any facts or evidence, admits mistakes that were made, and will enable the authorities to learn from the mistakes and hold people accountable where appropriate”.

The “tragic but avoidable accident (was) caused primarily by human error”, General John Campbell told reporters at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Kabul, adding that those most closely associated with the incident had been suspended from their duties.

“There is probable cause to believe that USA forces committed a war crime by striking the hospital”, said Professor Cohn.

The investigation concluded the crew of an AC-130 gunship mistook the clinic for a nearby government building controlled by the Taliban. The MSF hospital was 450 yards away from that compound.

STEPHANIE MARCH: The list of mistakes that lead to the tragic attack is long. That meant the aircraft launched without a mission briefing.

The AC-130’s onboard computer was malfunctioning, leaving the crew without the ability to transmit video, email or electronic messages.

Campbell said “Those who called and conducted the strike did not take procedures to verify this was a legitimate target”.

The investigation claimed that the warplane that attacked the hospital was given the coordinates of a site suspected of being a “Taliban base”, but that it turned out to be an empty field. They continued firing anyway.

Even when the plane’s systems corrected and locked onto the right target, the crew remained fixated on the hospital.

BOWMAN: So now they said, well, we have a physical description of this target. This is according to the report, but officials said that information never got to the attacking aircraft. But it’s unclear exactly what those consequences might be.

The strike began at 2:08 am local time, Campbell said, and at 2:20 am MSF phoned the USA military to report they were under attack.

According to Campbell, the crew aboard the AC-130 gunship were unaware that the hospital they had targeted was a trauma center.