Kasım İleri
29 April 2016•Update: 30 April 2016
By Kasim Ileri
WASHINGTON
The Pentagon said Thursday that 16 military personnel, including a general, were disciplined for their mistakes in striking a hospital in Afghanistan last year that resulted in 42 civilian deaths.
A defense official speaking to Anadolu Agency on the condition of anonymity said the personnel received “administrative punishments” and noted that “no criminal charges” were filed against them.
Declining to get into details, the official said that the Central Command Commander, Gen. Joseph Votel, would to announce the action Friday.
The hospital, run by the medical charity organization, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Kunduz, was hit by a U.S. AC-130, aircraft’s side-firing cannons and guns, last October.
The MSF called the attack "relentless and brutal”.
Pentagon officials also acknowledged that the incident was caused by human error.
According to the Pentagon, due to problems with the targeting sensors of the aircraft, the airmen relied on the physical description of the target which was indeed the hospital located a couple of hundred meters from the actual target.
As a result of the strike, 24 patients, 14 staff and 4 caretakers were killed.
