PH
General John Campbell said in a teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that a US investigation into the October 3 bombing showed it was the “direct result of human error” and that US forces directly involved in the strike did not know they were targeting a hospital.
The military personnel who requested the strike and those who carried it out did not take “appropriate measures” to verify the target, Campbell said.
“Those individuals most closely associated with the incident have been suspended from their duties, pending consideration and disposition of administrative and disciplinary matters,” Campbell said, without providing details about the military personnel involved.
Doctors Without Borders, which is known by its French acronym MSF, said in a report earlier this month that it had found no military justification for the US bombing of its hospital in northern Afghanistan that killed 30 of its patients and staff.
MSF said no armed combatants were inside the hospital at the time of the bombing and that the hospital was operating fully as a trauma centre.
The US airstrikes in Kunduz were prompted by the Taliban’s siege of the key northern city on September 28, which represented the group’s biggest victory since its removal from power in a US-led invasion in 2001.
