German defense minister fires military inspector general over Afghan airstrike incident

German military’s inspector general fired

BERLIN — The inspector general of Germany’s military was fired Thursday for failing to properly pass on information to political leaders about a September airstrike in Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, the defense minister said.

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told parliament that Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan was being relieved immediately of his duties after Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper published what it said were still captures from confidential videos of the incident.

Bild reported the videos showed it was likely that civilians were killed, and that the videos were in German hands at a time when then-Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung was insisting that there were no civilian victims.

Guttenberg said, however, that Jung had not seen the videos, and that he himself had only been shown them on Wednesday. Jung is now Germany’s labor minister.

A German colonel called in the NATO airstrike against two tanker trucks that had been seized by Taliban insurgents near Kunduz, fearing they could be used to attack troops.

Thirty civilians and 69 armed Taliban died in the strike, according to a probe by an Afghan presidential commission.

Earlier this month, Guttenberg said a classified NATO report concluded there were “procedural errors” in the Sept. 4 airstrike, but defended the decision by the colonel to request it as “appropriate in military terms.”

At the time, Guttenberg said he assumed there were civilian victims, based on his assessment of the NATO report.

“I regret … every civilian victim deeply,” he said.

The report was prepared by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, appointed a Canadian major general to lead the investigation along with officers from the U.S. Air Force and German military.

Germany has more than 4,000 troops serving in northern Afghanistan and 36 have been killed so far in the mission.