Kabul, April 04: Afghanistan has strongly condemned the killing of six its soldiers by German troops.
The Afghan Defense Ministry issued a statement calling for a probe into the incident, which claimed the lives of three members of the Afghan National Army in the northern province of Kunduz on Friday.
An initial statement by the International Security Assistance Force said German soldiers opened fire on two “unmarked civilian cars” which failed to stop when signaled to halt, but a NATO spokesman later said it was unclear if the vehicles were civilian, the BBC reported.
Afghan commanders were meeting on Saturday with US-led coalition forces to discuss the so-called friendly fire incident.
The shooting followed a fierce gun battle between German soldiers and Taliban militants, who attacked foreign forces on a bridge-building and mine-clearing mission southwest of Kunduz city. Three German soldiers were killed by the Taliban fire.
Dozens of Afghan civilians died last September in Kunduz when German commanders called in a NATO airstrike on two hijacked fuel trucks, sparking outrage across Afghanistan and drawing strong criticism from the German opposition about the presence of the country’s contingent in Afghanistan.
Last September, the US and other NATO countries announced that tens of thousands of additional forces would be deployed in Afghanistan in 2010 to help stem mounting militant attacks against foreign troops in the country.
However, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, acknowledged in late March that NATO had failed to reduce the number of civilians falling victim to the indiscriminate fire of NATO convoys and checkpoints.
According to military officials, more than 30 Afghans were killed by mistake and 80 others were wounded in shootings since last summer. The military estimate, however, does not include shootings by private security firms.
Over eight years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the country remains the hotbed of Taliban militancy while the prolonged foreign military presence has not been able to bring peace to the war-torn nation.
———Agencies