Troops thought Taliban had overrun hospital
Doctors charity spoke with Green Berets before strike.
WASHINGTON — The Army Green Berets who requested the Oct. 3 airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders trauma center in Afghanistan were aware it was a functioning hospital but believed it was under Taliban control. The information adds to the evidence the site was familiar to the U.S. and raises questions about whether the attack violated international law.
A day before an American AC130 gunship attacked the hospital, a senior officer in the Green Beret unit wrote in a report that U.S. forces had discussed the hospital with the country director of the medical charity group, presumably in Kabul, according to two people who have seen the document.
The attack left a mounting death toll, now up to 30 people.
Separately, in the days before the attack, “an official in Washington” asked Doctors Without Borders “whether our hospital had a large group of Taliban fighters in it,” spokesman Tim Shenk said in an email. “We replied that this was not the case. We also stated that we were very clear with both sides to the conflict about the need to respect medical structures.”
Taken together, the revelations add to the growing possibility that U.S. forces destroyed what they knew was a functioning hospital, which would be a violation of international law. The Pentagon has said Americans would never have intentionally fired on a medical facility, and it’s unclear why the Green Beret unit requested the strike — and how such an attack was approved by the chain of command — on coordinates widely known to have included a hospital.
Even if the U.S. believed the Taliban were operating from the hospital, the presence of wounded patients inside would have made an air attack on it problematic under standard American rules of engagement and the international law of war.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Roger Cabiness declined to answer questions, saying in a statement that it would be “premature to draw any conclusions” before the three investigations into the attack are complete.
The U.S. has determined “that the reports of civilian casualties were credible, and we continue to work with the government of Afghanistan to fully identify the victims,” said Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, a NATO spokesman, in a statement.
U.S. and NATO investigations, he said, “continue to look at a series of potential human errors, failures of process and technical malfunctions that may have contributed to the mistaken strike on the hospital.”
The coordinates of the hospital were sent to “all friendly forces,” the Oct. 2 report by a senior Green Beret officer said, noting that among the U.S. objectives for the next day was to “clear the trauma center” of enemy forces.
Doctors Without Borders officials say the hospital was not under Taliban control and that no gunmen were operating from the compound — about six city blocks square — when the A130 gunship made five passes, firing for an hour.
Another hospital run by Afghanistan’s health ministry, a short distance away, had been overrun by the Taliban when insurgents seized the city.
The new information raises the possibility that some elements of the U.S. intelligence and military apparatus had confused the two hospitals. Other evidence argues against such confusion.