U. S. DEFENCE CHIEF PROMISES PROBE INTO AFGHAN HOSPITAL AIRSTRIKE
MADRID U. S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter promised a full and transparent investigation into whether a U. S. aircraft providing support for American and Afghan commandos was responsible for the explosions that destroyed a hospital in northern Afghanistan, killing 22 people.
Speaking to reporters travelling with him to Spain, Carter said, “the situation there is confused and complicated, so it may take some time to get the facts, but we will get the facts.”
He said he spoke to Gen. John Campbell, the top U. S. commander in Afghanistan, and to Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during his flight to Madrid, adding that “there will be accountability as always in these incidents, if that is required.”
The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders responded angrily Sunday to suggestions the hospital was a Taliban base.
The organization “is disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan government authorities justifying the attack on its hospital in Kunduz,” Christopher Stokes, the general director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement.
“These statements imply that Afghan and U. S. forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital with more than 180 staff and patients inside because they claim that members of the Taliban were present. This amounts to an admission of a war crime.”
U. S. officials said American special operations forces advising Afghan commandos in the vicinity of the hospital requested the air support when they came under fire in Kunduz. The officials said the AC- 130 gunship responded and fired on the area, but Carter said it’s not certain whether that was what destroyed the hospital.
Doctors Without Borders said Sunday it had withdrawn from Kunduz in the wake of the deadly airstrike.