{"id":48740,"date":"2015-10-15T15:39:21","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T22:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=48740"},"modified":"2015-10-15T15:39:21","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T22:39:21","slug":"us-forces-in-afghanistan-knew-kunduz-site-was-hospital-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/10\/15\/us-forces-in-afghanistan-knew-kunduz-site-was-hospital-report\/","title":{"rendered":"US forces in Afghanistan knew Kunduz site was hospital &#8211; report"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"article__heading\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy RT<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"article__date\"><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Published time: 15 Oct, 2015 18:10<\/time><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Edited time: 15 Oct, 2015 18:58<\/time><\/div>\n<div class=\"article__short-url\">\n<div class=\"short-url\"><a class=\"short-url__link\" href=\"http:\/\/on.rt.com\/6tz6\">Get short URL<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__cover\">\n<div class=\"media  \"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media__item \" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2015.10\/original\/561ff55bc46188dd628b459f.jpg\" alt=\"The damaged hospital in which the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical charity operated is seen on October 13, 2015 following an air strike in the northern city of Kunduz. \u00a9 STR \" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"media__footer media__footer_bottom \">\n<div class=\"media__title media__title_arcticle\">The damaged hospital in which the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical charity operated is seen on October 13, 2015 following an air strike in the northern city of Kunduz. \u00a9 STR \/ AFP<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__share\">\n<div class=\"addthis_sharing_toolbox\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/318786-us-analysts-kunduz-hospital\/\" data-title=\"US forces in Afghanistan knew Kunduz site was hospital - report \u2014 RT USA\">\n<div id=\"atstbx\" class=\"at-share-tbx-element addthis_32x32_style addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show\"><span class=\"at_flat_counter\">1.4K<\/span><span class=\"at_flat_counter\">898<\/span><span class=\"at_flat_counter\">8<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__summary summary \">New information suggests the US deliberately targeted the Kunduz hospital, killing 22 patients and staff, despite knowing it was a protected medical site.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__text text \">\n<p>US special operations analysts investigated the hospital for days prior to the deadly October 3 attack, describing the hospital as a base of operations for a Pakistani agent coordinating Taliban activities, <a href=\"http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/urn:publicid:ap.org:5e20fcd92aee49e699149aef93595e49\">AP has learned<\/a>\u00a0from a former intelligence official familiar with the documents.<\/p>\n<p>The site, operated by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF), was attacked five times in the span of an hour by a C-130 gunship, despite repeated pleas by the MSF to US forces. MSF officials described repeated strafing runs against the main hospital building, which housed the emergency room and the intensive care unit. No surrounding buildings were hit, they say.<\/p>\n<p>The new details suggest <em>&#8220;that the hospital was intentionally targeted,\u201d<\/em> Meinie Nicolai of MSF told the AP by email. <em>This would amount to a premeditated massacre,\u201d<\/em> she added.<\/p>\n<p>According to AP&#8217;s source, intelligence reports suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center and a repository for heavy weapons. MSF insists that no weapons were allowed in the hospital.\u00a0While the US military has claimed that US and Afghan forces came under fire from the hospital, Afghan hospital employees told AP that no one had fired from the building<\/p>\n<p>MSF staff <em>&#8220;reported a calm night and that there were no armed combatants, nor active fighting in or from the compound prior to the airstrikes,&#8221;<\/em> Nicolai told AP.<\/p>\n<p>The US military initially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/318786-us-analysts-kunduz-hospital\/12%20MSF%20staff,%207%20patients%20killed%20in%20Kunduz%20attack,%20US%20admits%20airstrike%20'in%20vicinity'%20of%20hospital\">reported<\/a>\u00a0the air strike was conducted in the vicinity\u201d of the MSF medical facility, targeting the Taliban who were fighting US and Afghan forces, and that the strike may have resulted in collateral damage  to the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Two days later, General John F. Campbell, commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, said the Afghan forces had requested air support because <em>they were taking fire from enemy positions\u201d<\/em> and said that <em>several civilians were accidentally struck\u201d<\/em> in the air strike.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__cover\">\n<div class=\"media\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media__item\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2015.10\/original\/561ff757c36188844e8b459a.jpg\" alt=\"\u00a9 Mohammad Ismail \" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"media__footer media__footer_bottom \">\n<div class=\"media__title media__title_footer\">\u00a9 Mohammad Ismail \/ Reuters<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee the following day, however, Campbell described the strike as a decision by US officers, adding there was a special operations unit in the area that was in contact with the gunship. <em>A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility,&#8221;<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/317684-kunduz-hospital-bombed-notifications\/\">READ MORE: Kunduz hospital bombed despite US knowing its exact location \u2013 Moscow\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>US forces in Afghanistan have been authorized to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/318265-kunduz-airstrike-us-condolence-payments\/\">condolence payments\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to the victims&#8217; families and payments to MSF in order to repair the hospital, the Pentagon said on October 11. The US and Afghan governments have also launched internal investigations into the deadly attack. However, MSF insists on an independent investigation, and has described the hospital bombing as a war crime.<br \/>\nPentagon officials declined to comment on the AP report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy RT Published time: 15 Oct, 2015 18:10Edited time: 15 Oct, 2015 18:58 Get short URL The damaged hospital in which the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical charity operated is seen on October 13, 2015 following an air strike in the northern city of Kunduz. \u00a9 STR \/ AFP 1.4K8988 New information suggests the US [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}