NATO troubled by airstrike in Afghanistan

BERLIN, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Germany and the United States are trying to evade responsibility for an anti-terror airstrike in Afghanistan that may have killed dozens of civilians, opposition leaders say.

This past Friday, a German commander called in U.S. bombers to take out two fuel tankers stolen by Taliban fighters near Kunduz. At the time of the airstrike, dozens of civilians had gathered around the tankers, and many of them are now seriously injured or dead. According to a report by The Washington Post, a NATO fact-finding team estimated that as many as 125 people were killed in the airstrike, of whom at least two dozen were not Taliban. It was the first time a German commander called in air support in Afghanistan, and it ended up becoming the deadliest incident involving German troops since the end of World War II.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday promised a thorough investigation into the Sept. 4 bombing but added that the Bundeswehr would remain in Afghanistan.

"The mission in Afghanistan is our reaction to terror," Merkel said, three days before the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. "The consequences of not acting will affect us just as much as the consequences of acting."

But experts say the airstrike is hurting NATO's security efforts.

"We have a terrible tragedy on two levels," Jere Van Dyk, a terrorist expert, told CBS. "One, so many people were killed. Secondly, it's a coup for the Taliban. It's a black mark for NATO and its allies."

NATO officials have lashed out against the airstrike, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner calling it a "big mistake" and several U.S. military officials blaming the Germans for a failed mission approach. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said German troops took too long to be back at the site after the airstrike.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said that the German commander on the ground had a clear indication that the Taliban were planning to use the tankers for an attack against a nearby German camp.

"Therefore I regard the decision of the German commander's on location as correct," he told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "The airstrike was absolutely necessary. I cannot comprehend how some can so quickly criticize the military action without knowing what the situation was or the background information."

But the incident comes at a bad time for NATO, which has changed its anti-terrorist strategy in a bid to minimize civilian casualties.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is outraged over the incident.

"What an error of judgment! More than 90 dead all because of a simple lorry that was, moreover, immobilized in a riverbed," he told French newspaper Le Figaro. "Why didn't they send in ground troops to recover the fuel tank?"

The German opposition has also fired at Jung, the defense minister, calling for his resignation. Merkel does not want to go that far but has promised to take a more commanding role when it comes to Germany's Afghanistan mission.

State prosecutors in Potsdam, close to where the German armed forces have their operational headquarters, are examining whether to open a formal investigation against the German commander in Kunduz, according to media reports.

Germany has around 4,000 troops stationed with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. They are stationed in northern Afghanistan, where they focus on reconstruction efforts. At home, polls indicate that a slightly higher percentage of Germans are in favor of ending the German contribution to the ISAF mission.