WASHINGTON — Nearly two months after a U.S. warplane mistakenly attacked a hospital in northern Afghanistan, officials said Friday it remains unclear how many civilians were killed.
In releasing a two-page summary of an international investigation that was intended to assess civilian casualties from the Oct. 3 attack in Kunduz, NATO said efforts are still under way to reconcile reports that put the death total at either 30 or 31.
A separate U.S. military investigation has been completed to more fully sort out what went wrong and to establish the basis for possible disciplinary action against the U.S. personnel involved. That investigation concluded that the crew of the AC-130 gunship that conducted the attack did not know the target was a hospital, but that a combination of human error, technical failures and other mistakes led to the tragedy.
The U.S. investigation report has not been released publicly, but the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, said Wednesday it found that 30 civilians had died. Campbell offered his condolences to the victims of what he called a “tragic but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error.”
