by Our Foreign Desk

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS (MSF) has rejected US claims that its attack on an Afghan hospital was made in error.

MSF general director Christopher Stokes said in an Associated Press interview that the “extensive, quite precise destruction” of the bombing raid casts doubt on US military assertions.

Mr Stokes said the attack on October 3 that killed 22 patients and staff should be investigated as a possible war crime.

In the interview, held outside the burnt-out main hospital building in Kunduz on Friday, Mr Stokes said MSF wanted a “clear explanation because all indications point to a grave breach of international humanitarian law and therefore a war crime.

“The hospital was repeatedly hit both at the front and the rear and extensively destroyed and damaged, even though we have provided all the co-ordinates and all the right information to all the parties in the conflict.

“The extensive, quite precise destruction of this hospital … doesn’t indicate a mistake. The hospital was repeatedly hit,” he said.

MSF has said the bombing went on for more than an hour despite calls to Afghan, US and Nato forces. The US gunship made five separate strafing runs in that time.

The attack by the AC-130 — the kind of gunship used in the brutal US war in Vietnam — was ordered as Afghan national army troops were fighting to recapture Kunduz from the Taliban.

The surprise capture of the wealthy northern city was a huge propaganda victory for the Islamist fighters and a major setback for Kabul and Nato forces.

Associated Press has reported that US special operations analysts were scrutinising the hospital days before it was destroyed as they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to co-ordinate Taliban activity.

MSF has denied there were any armed Taliban fighters on the hospital grounds at the time of the attack.

“The compound was not entered by Taliban soldiers with weapons,” Mr Stokes said.

“What we have understood from our staff and guards is that there was very strong, very good control of what was happening in and around the compound and they reported no firing in the hours preceding the destruction of the hospital.”