News

Actions

Human error, technical failures led to Doctors Without Borders strike, general says

Posted at 10:09 AM, Nov 25, 2015
and last updated 2015-11-25 11:11:11-05

An investigation determined last month’s deadly U.S. airstrike Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz “was the direct result of human error compounded by systems and procedural failures,” Gen. John Campbell, the top NATO and U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said Wednesday.

U.S. forces involved in the strike did not know the target was a hospital, Campbell said.

The hospital, he said, was misidentified as a target by U.S. personnel who believed they were striking a building several hundred meters away, where there were reported combatants.

U.S. military personnel most closely associated with the deadly October 3 airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders facility have been suspended from their duties, pending a military justice process, Campbell said.

RELATED:

At least 19 killed, including three children, in suspected U.S. airstrike on Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan

U.S. commander says civilians ‘accidentally struck’ in Afghan hospital bombing

Doctors Without Borders: Kunduz strike an ‘attack on the Geneva conventions’

Doctors Without Borders ‘did everything right’ before airstrike, U.S. official says

Airstrikes hit Doctors Without Borders clinic in Yemen