German defense minister vows probe into friendly fire clash that killed 6 Afghan soldiers

Germany to probe friendly fire clash that killed 6

BERLIN — Germany’s defense minister on Sunday announced a thorough investigation into the friendly fire clash that left six Afghan soldiers dead and said the tragedy came during a sophisticated attack by up to 150 Taliban fighters.

Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told journalists that the German prosecutor general has started an investigation of its own into the deadly clash Friday night near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. In addition, NATO’s ISAF, the Afghan Defense Ministry and his own German defense department will investigate what happened, Guttenberg said.

The friendly fire deaths occurred on the same day that three German troops died and eight were wounded in heavy fighting with insurgents. 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, he 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 in Bonn.

He also confirmed that six Afghan soldiers were killed. The German military previously had put the death toll at five.

The minister also prepared Germans to expect more fighting by saying the situation in Afghanistan could “colloquially be referred to as war” — until now German politicians had always stopped short of calling military operations in Afghanistan a war.

“Operations there are and remain dangerous,” 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.

The presence of some 4,000 German troops in Afghanistan — where 39 soldiers were killed so far — is increasingly unpopular in Germany.

Development minister Dirk Niebel earlier urged the country’s public to show more understanding and support for their troops in Afghanistan, urging “more comprehension for the need that they sometimes have to defend themselves preemptively.”

Niebel said German soldiers can’t understand the lack of comprehension by the German public and why they have to fear prosecution at home for defending themselves.

Niebel met with German soldiers in Afghanistan on Saturday after visiting development projects and was flying 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.

Also Sunday, 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.

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.