Merkel defends communications after fatal Afghanistan air strike

Feb 10, 2011, 17:06 GMT

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday rejected claims that she was less than frank 17 months ago about Afghan civilian casualties in an International Security Assistance Force airstrike against the Taliban.

The strike, ordered by a German colonel and carried out by a US aircraft, unleashed huge political recriminations in Germany, with critics calling it the deadliest German military action since World War II.

By some estimates, dozens or even 100 Afghans - some Taliban and some civilians - were killed when two stolen petrol tankers blew up during the airstrike.

Merkel, testifying before a parliamentary commission of inquiry, denied she had held back information on the civilian casualties for fear that it would swing public opinion against the government with an election just three weeks away.

'It was made adequately clear that there had very probably been civilian victims,' she said. 'All the allegations that the government lacked an interest in disclosure or even tried to prevent it are without foundation.'

She enumerated the details that she made public after the September 4, 2009 airstrike, speaking to the media two days later and to parliament four days after the nighttime bombing attack.

The defence minister at the time, Franz Josef Jung, lost his subsequent post as labour minister several weeks later, after criticism that he had not quickly admitted that some of the victims were Afghan villagers tapping petrol from the stolen trucks.

Surveys show that a majority of Germans oppose the deployment of up to 5,000 German soldiers with the NATO-led ISAF in Afghanistan. ISAF's command has criticized the German colonel for overstepping rules on avoiding civilian deaths.

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