Two soldiers told a congressman the U.S. strike on an Afghanistan hospital in October was not an accident as the Pentagon claims, but an intentional strike on what the military thought had become a Taliban command center.
A powerful and precise gunship fired on the Doctors Without Borders hospital for more than 30 minutes, killing 31 civilians and destroying the building in what Doctors Without Borders is calling a war crime. The military characterized the strike as some kind of accident in reports that have changed over time.
The accounts Hunter heard from the two servicemen involved in the strike suggest Afghan troops on the ground lied to U.S. forces about the state of the hospital, Hunter tells Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in a letter Tuesday obtained by ABC News. (RELATED: Doctors Without Borders Ignored Geneva Rules Before U.S. Attack)
U.S. special forces soldiers called in the strike because Afghan forces reported the hospital was being used as a Taliban command center, the unidentified soldiers tell Hunter. U.S. forces didn’t realize it was still operating as a hospital.
“There were enemy in there,” Hunter quotes one of the soldiers as saying. “They had already removed and ransomed the foreign doctors, and they had fired on partnered personnel from there.” (RELATED: Dershowitz: Doctors Without Borders Is Really ‘Doctors Without Morals’)
The military first reported the strike was called in to protect U.S. forces under fire, but later that it was called in to protect Afghan troops under fire. Accounts have differed as to whether the soldiers who carried out the attack knew they were striking a hospital. The military’s most recent official report is that the intended target was half a mile away, and the hospital hit was the result of human error and technical failures.
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