The US military acknowledged on Saturday killing 23 civilians and wounding 12 others earlier this year after mistaking them for a convoy of Taliban insurgents. The US report into the incident, which happened in Uruzgan, said the crew of a remote-controlled drone aircraft had “provided inaccurate reporting” ahead of the incident and local command posts “failed to properly analyse the situation”.
“Information that the convoy was anything other than an attacking force was ignored or downplayed by UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) personal,” it said.
The Taliban are responsible for the majority of civilian conflict deaths in the country, but the issue is a sensitive one for US-led foreign troops, who are frequently accused of using indiscriminate firepower — even in civilian areas — to fight the insurgency.
The US counterinsurgency strategy emphasises seizing population centres and avoiding combat in built-up areas whenever possible to avert civilian deaths. Taliban fighters, however, frequently plant bombs, launch suicide raids and attack government and Western targets in civilian areas. The US report into the Uruzgan incident cited operational shortcomings in training. —Reuters