NATO Probing Deadly Airstrike

Anti-Taliban Operation in Afghanistan May Have Killed Civilians And Further Complicated the Strained U.S.-Led Security Mission

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Local Afghani people bury their villagers killed in a NATO air strike, in a mass grave near Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo) (AP)

German ISAF soldiers unload their weapons after inspecting the site of a NATO air strike outside Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. NATO jets blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus) (Anja Niedringhaus - AP)

Local Afghani people burry their villagers killed in a NATO airstrike, in a mass grave near Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo) (AP)

Local Afghan people bury their villagers killed in a NATO air strike, in a mass grave near Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo) (AP)

Afghani policemen look at burnt rifles as they investigate near one of two burnt fuel tanker, near Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said. (AP Photo) (AP)

Residents prepare to bury those killed in the NATO airstrike near Kunduz, Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai also has ordered an investigation into the strike. (Associated Press Photos)

Afghan police officers examine the site of the airstrike, in which a U.S. fighter jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban fighters. Estimates of the death toll vary widely. (AP)

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By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 5, 2009

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Sept. 4 -- NATO launched an investigation Friday into a predawn airstrike in which an American fighter jet bombed two hijacked fuel trucks in northern Afghanistan, killing scores of people and prompting accusations that many of the dead were civilians.

Estimates of the number of dead varied widely. The governor of Kunduz province, where the attack occurred, said 72 people were killed when the trucks exploded in a huge fireball, while the German military said the death toll was about 50. German forces under NATO command have responsibility for the area and had called in the airstrike out of concern that the Taliban intended to use the trucks in suicide bombings, German officials said.

A senior U.S. defense official said 56 people were counted around and on top of the vehicles in video taken immediately before the blast. "Nobody that was close . . . lived," he said. "But it's also not clear whether the individuals who are around the vehicles there were actually insurgents or not.

A Belgian soldier who visited the village nearest the site of the attack, Staff Sgt. Filip Bergeman, said residents told him that Taliban fighters forced several villagers to help remove fuel from the trucks after the vehicles got stuck in the Kunduz River. Bergeman said he was told that 14 of the villagers were killed.

The airstrike occurred a day after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates indicated that he is open to increasing U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan despite earlier concerns about an outsize American "footprint" in the country. Gates said his view had been altered by an assessment submitted this week to President Obama by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, which stressed the importance of troops' interactions with civilians and efforts to reduce civilian casualties.

President Hamid Karzai also ordered an investigation into the strike, saying that "targeting civilians is unacceptable for us." Civilian deaths as a result of NATO military operations have fueled intense anger among many Afghans, including Karzai, and have sapped public support for the multinational mission to combat the Islamist Taliban movement, which has gained ground this year against a government widely viewed as corrupt and incompetent.

In a taped message Friday night, McChrystal appeared to acknowledge the likelihood of civilian casualties in the airstrike, saying, "I take this possible loss of life or injury to innocent Afghans very seriously."

Translations of the message into the two main Afghan languages, Pashto and Dari, were distributed to the Afghan media. Addressing "the great people of Afghanistan," McChrystal said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had "launched an attack against what we believed to be a Taliban target in Kunduz. As commander, nothing is more important [to me] than the safety and protection of the Afghan people."

In an effort to reduce civilian deaths, McChrystal recently issued rules limiting the use of airstrikes. It was not immediately clear whether Friday's airstrike conformed to the new rules.

The NATO command in Afghanistan pledged to fully examine the airstrike, and McChrystal said in his message that he had dispatched a team of senior officers Friday afternoon to look into the incident. The officers allowed a Washington Post reporter to accompany them.

Footage from the F-15E jet that dropped the bombs showed that many, if not most, of the people milling around the trucks in the moments before the airstrike were killed when the bombs detonated and the fuel tankers exploded. The grainy, black-and-white video, which was viewed by the investigating officers at a German military base here, showed only a handful of people running away after the explosion.

The German officers said footage from the F-15E and an earlier overflight of a U.S. B-1B bomber showed some of the people at the scene carrying weapons. The Germans also said that an intelligence source told them before the strike that all of the people around the trucks were insurgents.

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