Obama apologizes to Doctors Without Borders, offers condolences over U.S. attack

However, U.S. Gen. John F. Campbell confessed on Wednesday that the attack was “a US decision made within the USA chain of command”, reports The New York Times.

The global Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission has been in existence since 1991 but has not been tasked until now.

The White House had previously stopped short of issuing a full apology for what a senior US general acknowledged earlier this week was a “mistake”.

MSF said that the commission’s inquiry would gather facts and evidence from the United States, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghanistan, as well as testimony from MSF staff and patients who survived.

The President expressed his condolences for the Afghan civilians killed and injured when a US military airstrike mistakenly struck a Doctors Without Borders field hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

He added: “The United States, when we make a mistake, we’re honest about it, we own up to it, we apologise where necessary”.

Mr Obama also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and pledged to keep working closely with his government, Mr Earnest said.

MSF said statements from the Afghan and U.S. forces implied they worked together to deliberately target the hospital, which amounts to an admission of a war crime.

Top representatives of Doctors without Borders were in Switzerland today where they called for an independent investigation into the bombing of their hospital in Kunduz.

“If we came down to 1,000 – there is no counterterrorism structured force in those numbers”, according to Campbell, who said coalition forces in Afghanistan has been reduced to 14,000, of which approximately 10,000 are USA troops.

Only then would MSF decide whether to bring criminal charges for loss of life and damage, it said.

LAWRENCE: One of 76 signatory countries has to sponsor an investigation in order to activate the Fact-Finding Commission. In addition to a Department of Defense investigative process that is already underway, there also will be an investigation that is conducted by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and a third joint investigation carried out by USA military personnel alongside Afghan security officials into the deadly airstrike.