Kabul, September 09: The commander of US NATO forces in Afghanistan has appointed a Canadian officer to lead a formal investigation into a deadly air strike in northern Afghanistan.
Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal has named Maj. Gen. CS ‘Duff’ Sullivan as head of the Joint Investigation Board which is to be set up to review the German-requested attack that left at least 90 people dead, many of them civilians, and scores of others injured.
The board — including a US Air Force officer, a German officer, and a legal adviser — is tasked with researching and documenting all facts and circumstances surrounding the air strike.
The team is to coordinate its activities with yet another fact-finding panel formed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The investigation is expected to be completed in several weeks.
The deadly attack took place on September 3, when NATO warplanes targeted stolen fuel tankers on orders of a German commander in the northern Kunduz province.
The NATO command claimed the air raid had targeted two fuel tankers allegedly hijacked by Taliban-linked militants.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan had originally insisted that only the Taliban hijackers had died.
However, it later acknowledged that ‘along with insurgents, civilians also were killed and injured in the strike’.
The incident drew international condemnation and world leaders called for a probe into the air strike.
—–Agencies