Time: 8:53 p.m. CEST
The Pentagon said that a U.S. air strike that destroyed a medical charity’s climic in northern Afghanistan and killed 42 people, “was not a war crime,” BBC News reports. General Joseph Votel explained and confirmed “disciplinary charges against 16 U.S. service personnel.”
Votel said, the “tragic strike” was a result of the human and technical errors. Pentagon said no-one will face criminal charges as the U.S. gunship mistook the hospital at Kunduz. A U.S. gunship git the Medecins Sans Froniteres (MSF) hospital instead of the building that militants thought it was seized by Taliban fighters.
Gen Votel, the head of US Central Command, said that a crew tired from days of fighting taking off earlier than planned without the correct preparatory information.
“The investigation found that the incident resulted from a combination of human errors, process errors and equipment failures and that none of the personnel knew they were striking a hospital,” he said, BBC News writes. He added: “The fact this was unintentional takes it out of the realm of being a deliberate war crime,” Votel explained.
MSF said that it was “incomprehensible” that the bombing had not been halted and called again for independent investigation. “Today’s briefing amounts to an admission of an uncontrolled military operation in a densely populated urban area, during which US forces failed to follow the basic laws of war,” said MSF President Meinie Nicolai, BBC News writes.
