Defense minister prepares Germans for Afghan ‘war,’ vows probe into deadly friendly fire clash

Defense Minister prepares Germans for Afghan ‘war’

BERLIN — Germany’s defense minister on Sunday for the first time referred to military operations in Afghanistan as a war, while he promised to investigate a friendly fire clash that left six Afghan soldiers dead.

Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg broke a government taboo on the politically charged word, preparing Germans to expect more fighting by telling reporters: “Even if not everyone likes it, regarding what happens in parts of Afghanistan, one can colloquially refer to it as war.”

German politicians have stopped short of using the word to refer to military operations in Afghanistan for fear of generating even more public opposition to a mission that is already deeply unpopular.

Some 4,000 German soldiers control the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan, and 39 German soldiers have died in Afghanistan in the last nine years. Parts of the north have recently proven more volatile.

Friendly fire clashes on Friday left six Aghan soldiers dead, the same day three German troops died and eight were wounded in heavy fighting with insurgents.

“Operations there are and remain dangerous,” Guttenberg said at a televised news conference in Bonn.

Guttenberg said the German prosecutor general has opened an investigation into the friendly fire incident. In addition, NATO’s ISAF, the Afghan Defense Ministry and the defense department will investigate what happened, Guttenberg said.

Friday’s attack on the German soldiers — carried out by an estimated 150 Taliban fighters — was “remarkable in its complexity” and involved several attacks in different locations, Guttenberg added.

The German troops were rushing to the scene of their comrades’ fighting after nightfall and mistook the Afghan soldiers for insurgents, the military said. Guttenberg expressed his sympathy to the families and relatives of the Afghan soldiers killed by German soldiers.

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed condolences to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Guttenberg presented his apologies to his Afghan counterpart Abdul Rahim Wardak, he said.

Amid heavy fighting, friendly fire incidents “can never be excluded with absolute certainty,” Guttenberg said.

Germany is still committed to building a secure Afghanistan, he said, noting that a failing state could have a destabilizing impact on Central Asia and Afghanistan’s neighbors, Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Guttenberg has been inching closer to directly using the word “war” since becoming defense minister in October, refering to “conditions similar to a war.” Guttenberg stressed Sunday that the word can only be used “colloquially” because the legal definition for a war would require two nations to be in armed conflict.

After more than eight years in Afghanistan, the government in February changed its official stance on the conflict from “stabilization mission” to “armed conflict.”

Col. Ulrich Kirsch, the head of the German soldiers’ union, has said that wording offers troops “increased legal security” because they may resort to force more easily.

Earlier on Sunday, development minister Dirk Niebel urged the public to show more understanding and support for their troops in Afghanistan, asking for “more comprehension for the need that they sometimes have to defend themselves preemptively.”

Niebel met with German soldiers in Afghanistan on Saturday after visiting development projects and flew back to Germany on Sunday with three coffins from Friday’s fighting near Kunduz.

The Kunduz region is also where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an airstrike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.

Retired General Harald Kujat, formerly the highest ranking German soldier and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, accused the government of “ignorance regarding the military’s needs” for its operations in Afghanistan.

Kujat told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that crucial equipment for a successful mission was lacking and said more soldiers were needed. The current mandate — allowing a maximum of 5,000 soldiers — is a political compromise “which does not reflect the real operational needs,” he was quoted as saying.

The government lacks a coherent strategy for its mission in Afghanistan, he said.

Guttenberg — without explicitly referring to Kujat — defended the German government’s strategy and rejected criticism on the military’s equipment, instead praising the soldiers professionalism in Friday’s fighting.

Kujat — Germany’s top soldier from 2000 to 2002 before moving to NATO — also said he expects more brazen attacks by the Taliban on the German military in northern Afghanistan.