'Large numbers' of civilian deaths in blast
Updated on 04 September 2009
Nato is investigating reports of 'large numbers' of civilian deaths in Afghanistan following an airstrike on two fuel tankers that had been hijacked by Taliban fighters. Sue Turton reports.
The strike happened in Kunduz province on the main road to Baghlan. Nato officials said the two fuel trucks had been captured by Taliban insurgents and had to be destroyed.
NATO originally said all the dead were Taliban fighters, but then admitted hospitals in the area were treating a 'large number' of civilians.
Kunduz province Governor Mohammad Omar said as many as 90 people were feared killed, burned alive in the giant blast, which took place as villagers gathered to collect fuel from tanker trucks captured by Taliban militants.
President Karzai has sent an investigation team to the scene, and said targetting civilians was never acceptable.
'Strike was against insurgents'
Afghan authorities had reported two fuel trucks hijacked, and NATO aircraft then spotted them on a river bank, said Lieutenant-Commander Christine Sidenstricker, press officer for the U.S. and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
"After observing that only insurgents were in the area, the local ISAF commander ordered air strikes which destroyed the fuel trucks and killed a large number of insurgents," she said.
"The strike was against insurgents. That's who we believe was killed. But we are absolutely investigating" reports of civilian deaths, she said.
Asked how pilots could know whether a crowd around the trucks included civilians, she said:
"Based on information available at the scene, the commanders believed they were insurgents."
The Kunduz area is patrolled mainly by NATO's German contingent, barred by Berlin from operating in combat zones further south.
Civilian casualties from Nato strikes have caused outrage among Afghans. The new commander of Nato and US forces in the country, General Stanley McChrystal, has made curbing such casualties a main focus of his strategy.
