KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO forces in Afghanistan were investigating on Friday whether civilians were among scores of people burned to death when they carried out an air strike against two hijacked fuel tankers.
The Kunduz area is patrolled mainly by NATO's German contingent, barred by Berlin from operating in combat zones.
NATO said it believed the dead were all Taliban fighters, but angry relatives in northern Kunduz province said villagers were collecting fuel from the hijacked trucks and caught in the blast.
If the civilian deaths are confirmed, the incident could reignite outrage against foreign troops two months after the new U.S. and NATO commander in the country announced measures to reduce civilian casualties undermining the war effort.
Kunduz province Governor Mohammad Omar said as many as 90 people were feared killed, burned alive in a giant fireball.
Lieutenant-Commander Christine Sidenstricker, press officer for the U.S. and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said Afghan authorities had reported two fuel trucks hijacked. NATO aircraft spotted them on a river bank.
"After observing that only insurgents were in the area, the local ISAF commander ordered air strikes which destroyed the fuel trucks and killed a large number of insurgents," she said.
"The strike was against insurgents. That's who we believe was killed. But we are absolutely investigating" reports of civilian deaths, she said.
Asked how pilots could know whether a crowd around the trucks included civilians, she said: "Based on information available at the scene, the commanders believed they were insurgents."
The incident highlights the mounting insecurity in the north of the country, an area that had been seen as safe but where Taliban attacks have become increasingly frequent.
Under new orders issued in July by the ISAF commander, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, aircraft are not supposed to open fire unless they can confirm there is no chance civilians might be hurt or friendly forces are in immediate danger.
Provincial officials, who also could face a public backlash over civilian deaths, said both fighters and civilians were killed. Omar, the province's governor, said he believed half of those killed were militants, while provincial police chief Abdul Razzaq Yaqubi said a majority of the dead were fighters.
"My brother was burned when the aircraft bombed the fuel tankers. I don't know whether he is dead or alive," said weeping villager Ghulam Yahya, one of dozens of relatives gathered outside Kunduz Central Hospital in the provincial capital.
Mohammad Sarwar, a tribal elder in the province, said Taliban fighters had hijacked the tankers and were offering fuel to a crowd of villagers when the tankers were bombed.
"We blame both the Taliban and the government," he said.
DEAD TOO Burned FOR MORGUE
Mohammad Humayun Khamosh, a doctor at the Kunduz hospital, said 13 people with burns were brought there for treatment, but none of the dead had been taken to the hospital's morgue because the bodies were too badly burned.
"It is very hard to collect dead bodies or remains from the blast because the fuel they were collecting was highly flammable," he said.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said fighters had captured the two fuel tankers. One had become stuck in mud by a village, and the fighters went to try to tow it when residents gathered to take the fuel and the crowd was struck.
U.S. President Barack Obama has made stabilizing Afghanistan a foreign policy priority although public support for the war has eroded as U.S. combat deaths have risen to record levels.
Obama has ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, continuing an escalation begun under outgoing President Goerge W. Bush. More than 103,000 Western troops are in Afghanistan, including 63,000 Americans.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled on Thursday that he would be open to sending additional troops, asserting the war was not "slipping through the administration's fingers."
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Peter Graff in KABUL; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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REFILE-NATO seeks to calm Afghans after deadly air strike
05 Sep 2009 07:59:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Corrects date in dateline)
By Maria Golovnina
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. and German military officers met families and victims of a NATO air strike in Northern Afghanistan on Saturday in a bid to cool anger over an incident that undermines NATO efforts to win hearts and minds.
Afghan officials say scores of people were killed, many of them civilians, when a U.S. F-15 fighter jet called in by German troops struck two hijacked fuel trucks before dawn on Friday.
At the central hospital in the city of Kunduz, Shaifullah, a boy of 6 or 7 with an arm and a leg bandaged from severe burns, lay in a tiny, foul-smelling hospital room, crammed with beds and swarming with flies.
"I went to get the fuel with everybody else, and then the bombs fell on us," the boy told a delegation led by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Greg Smith, head of public affairs for the 103,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
American and German officers nodded, some taking notes.
NATO commanders hope to avert a backlash over the incident, which comes two months after the new U.S. and NATO commander, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered new procedures that require extra precautions to protect civilians before troops can fire.
The attack took place in Kunduz, a northern province that had been largely quiet since the Taliban were toppled in 2001, but has recently seen a sudden upsurge in attacks, with fighters seizing control of remote areas.
The area is patrolled by NATO's 4,000-strong German contingent, who are banned by Berlin from operating in combat zones in other parts of the country.
GERMAN ELECTION DEBATE
The German military has confirmed that a German commander approved the air strike, and the incident could add fuel to a debate about the war, which is unpopular back home, three weeks before a German general election.
NATO says its targets in the raid were Taliban fighters who had hijacked the fuel trucks, but has acknowledged that some of the victims being treated in hospital are civilians.
Smith, sent to the area on a fact-finding mission by McChrystal, shook hands with wounded victims and relatives.
"We regret the loss of life. We express condolences to all members of your village," he said to one relative outside the hospital.
"It's a challenge for us to discover what happened two nights ago. There were two bombs dropped on that area. We need to discover what really happened ... and how local villagers might have been affected by this," he told Reuters.
He said he had no figures of how many people had been killed or injured.
Kunduz province Governor Mohammad Omar blamed the local villagers for aiding Taliban insurgents and said the villagers along with the Taliban were responsible for the loss of lives.
"Villagers paid a price for helping and sheltering the insurgents," Omar told Reuters on Saturday. He said the death toll had not been finalised, and the probe was continuing.
Later on Saturday morning, a roadside bomb hit a German convoy near the city, yet another sign of mounting Taliban violence in the area. A Reuters reporting team saw damaged vehicles, but NATO said there were no reports of deaths.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in KABUL; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
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