Afghan airstrike triggers German resignations (2nd Roundup)

Nov 26, 2009, 18:02 GMT

Berlin - Germany's top military officer resigned Thurday in connection with a botched airstrike two months ago, and a cabinet minister's future was on the line, with Chancellor Angela Merkel grimly demanding an explanation.

The scandal, over whether defence chiefs withheld knowledge that the bombing of two tanker trucks may have killed dozens of Afghan civilians by mistake, came the same day as NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrived in Berlin.

He was requesting even more troops for the mission, which is already unpopular with Germans.

The mass-circulation Bild newspaper said that the government had held back video and soldiers' testimony suggesting civilian casualties in the German-ordered airstrike by US jets in Kunduz province on September 4.

The resignation of the inspector general of the German armed forces, General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, was announced by Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg in parliament during a debate on the extension of the German military presence in Afghanistan.

Franz Josef Jung, who was defence minister at the time of the airstrike and is now labour minister, rejected calls to resign from cabinet.

Instead of rushing to defend the imperiled minister, who is Christian Democrat like her, Merkel coolly told reporters she wanted an inquiry by the new defence minister.

'I've always said that if we want to win confidence, we have to have full transparency,' Merkel said. The old minister must reveal what he knew 'in the same spirit,' she added.

'In that regard, the present defence minister has of course my full support if he investigates, so to speak, what maybe needs investigating and backs and puts into effect the necessary consequences,' she added.

In an emergency debate in parliament, Jung said he had insisted from the start on a 'factual investigation' of the night-time airstrike, which now appears to have killed both Taliban fighters and villagers who were milling around the trucks.

The other party in the Merkel coalition government also distanced itself from Jung.

Elke Hoff, a Free Democrat, said in parliament, 'This is a very serious matter.' But she added, 'We should avoid prejudging this before there has been a thorough parliamentary inquiry.'

Guttenberg said earlier that a junior minister, Peter Wichert, who had been in office under Jung, was also 'taking responsibility' by resigning.

The precise death toll in the attack, and what proportion of dead were non-combatants, may never be known, but a NATO inquiry quoted various tolls, the highest of which was 142.

The number of civilian casualties was suspected to be in the dozens.

In the days after the event, minister Jung told a newspaper that 'according to the information I have at this time, only Taliban fighters were killed' in the bombing, while army general Schneiderhan cast doubt on reports of civilian deaths.

However Bild revealed that the previously-secret video and eyewitness accounts by German soldiers of civilian victims had been passed to the military headquarters near Berlin on the same day as the attack.

Germany has up to 4,500 soldiers in the northern Kunduz region as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force but the mission enjoys very little public support.

Rasmussen was in Berlin to press demands for even more soldiers to be sent to fight the Taliban, but the scandal appeared to make that a tougher sell than ever.

'It is of utmost importance that an American announcement of increased troop numbers is followed by additional troop contributions from other allies,' Rasmussen said.

US President Barack Obama is expected to announce an extra 30,000 US troops for Afghanistan next week. Analysts predict European allies including Germany, Britain, France and Italy will then be asked for around 10,000 more soldiers.

'Right now I am travelling and contacting a number of allies with the aim to urge them to increase their contributions to our mission in Afghanistan,' Rasmussen said at a joint press conference with Merkel.