‘Mistakes’ led to hospital attack

WASHINGTON: About 16 US military personnel, including one general officer, have been disciplined for mistakes that led to the bombing of an Afghan civilian hospital last year, which killed 42 people, a senior US official said yesterday.

According to officials, no criminal charges were filed and the service members received administrative punishments for the US airstrike in Kunduz. A number of those punished are US special operations forces. And while none was sent to court martial, in many cases a non-judicial punishment, such as a letter of reprimand or suspension, can effectively end a military career.

The Pentagon is expected to release its report on the investigation today.

The hospital, run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, was attacked by a US Air Force special operations AC-130 gunship – one of the most lethal in the US arsenal.

The US military said in November that the gunship’s crew had been sent to “take out” a Taliban command centre in a different building, about 400m from the hospital.

However, hampered by problems with their targeting sensors, the crew relied on a physical description that led them to begin firing at the hospital.

Officials have said the accident was caused by human error, and that many chances to avert the incident had been missed.

A separate US report on the incident revealed that the aircraft had fired 211 shells at the hospital compound over a period of 29 minutes before commanders realised the mistake and ordered a halt.