NATO probes airstrike on tankers in Afghanistan

[September 05, 2009]  KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AP) -- The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is "very seriously" concerned over reports civilians may have died in an airstrike against hijacked fuel tankers, an aide said Saturday, as the alliance investigated the attack that killed up to 70 people.

A U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle jet dropped two 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs on the two tankers early Friday after they were seized by the Taliban in Kunduz province. Local officials said the ensuing fireball killed both militants and villagers who had swarmed around the tanks to siphon off the fuel, but it was unclear how many were civilians.

The airstrike occurred despite Gen. Stanley McChrystal's orders restricting use of airpower if civilian lives are at risk. High civilian casualties in military operations have enraged Afghans and undercut support for the war against the Taliban.

An aide to McChrystal, who briefed reporters, said the general was taking reports of civilian deaths "very seriously."

McChrystal discussed the incident with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and later told senior commanders that "we need to know what we are hitting," the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity under command policy.

McChrystal told reporters Saturday in Kabul that he wanted to find out what happened in Kunduz "so that we first can prevent it from happening again - or minimize the chances that it happens again - and correct anything that we might be able to correct about it like helping the injured."

A 10-member NATO investigative team flew over the site on the Kunduz River where the U.S. jet, called in by the German military, bombed the tankers. German officials have said the Taliban may have been planning a suicide attack on the military's nearby Kunduz base using the hijacked tankers.

The investigative team led by U.S. Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith, NATO's director of communications in Kabul, also spoke to two wounded villagers in the Kunduz hospital, including a boy and a farmer with shrapnel wounds.

Smith said it was unclear yet how many civilians were at the site of the blast. "Unfortunately, we can't get to every village."

Mohammad Shafi, 10, lying in a hospital bed with bandages on his arm and leg, said that his father had told him not to go to the area but he went anyway. "While I was going to get the fuel, on the way I heard a big bang, and after that I don't know what happened," he said.

A bomb blast, meanwhile, hit a German military convoy Saturday, damaging at least one vehicle and wounding four troops, none seriously. Kunduz provincial police chief, Abdullah Razaq Yaqoobi, said a suicide car bomb caused the blast, though German military officials said it was a roadside bomb.

An AP reporter at a nearby German base said the blast created a shock wave that could be felt inside the base. The thousands of German troops in Kunduz have come under increasing militant attack in a region that had largely escaped the scale of violence seen in the east and south of Afghanistan.

Germany said 57 fighters were killed in Friday's airstrike and no civilians were believed in the area at the time, based on surveillance of the tankers by a drone aircraft. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, however, acknowledged some civilians may have died, and the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government announced a joint investigation.

Local government spokesman Mohammad Yawar estimated that more than 70 people were killed, at least 45 of them militants. Investigators were trying to account for the others, he said.

The local governor, Mohammad Omar, said 72 were killed and 15 wounded. He said about 30 of the dead were identified as insurgents, including four Chechens and a local Taliban commander. The rest were probably fighters or their relatives, he said.

Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition, and villagers buried some in a mass grave.

The deputy U.N. representative to Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, said Saturday he was "very concerned" about the reports of civilian deaths.

"Steps must also be taken to examine what happened and why an airstrike was employed in circumstances where it was hard to determine with certainty that civilians were not present," Galbraith said.

[Associated Press; By FRANK JORDANS and JASON STRAZIUSO]

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.