Kabul, September 07: Foreign forces in Afghanistan have denied reports that a deadly US-run air strike in the country’s northern sector was in violation of NATO rules.
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman, General Eric Tremblay, said on Monday that NATO investigators were still “on the ground” in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province where the Friday bombing took place, but have not yet reported their findings.
He added that the ISAF has not yet come up with a definitive death toll.
Folowing the German media outlets have blamed their government for the attack as the country’s military ordered US fighter jets to run the operation.
The denial also follows a Washington Post report that said a NATO investigation has found that a German commander — identified as Colonel Georg Klein — who ordered the fatal air strike in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, based his decision on just one intelligence source.
The publication went on to say that Klein had called the strike, after first receiving a grainy live video transmitted from a US F-15E fighter, showing numerous black dots around an allegedly hijacked fuel truck.
Only a single Afghan informant had concurred that everyone at the target site was an insurgent before the German colonel ordered a 500-pound (225-kilo) satellite-guided bomb to be dropped on each truck.
According to the NATO fact-finding team, about 125 people were killed in the bombing — many of them civilians, the Post added.
If true, the order would be in violation of NATO’s rules of engagement, which forbids its forces to bomb residential buildings based on a single source of information.
It also states that troops must establish a “pattern of life” to ensure that no civilians are in the target area.
Friday’s deadly bombing has reignited anger among Afghans, drawing international condemnation over civilian casualties caused by foreign troops in the volatile country.
Meanwhile, the lethal incident has turned into a struggle within NATO, in which both German and US officials appear to be trying to shift the blame.
—–Agencies