2009 Kunduz airstrike
| Kunduz airstrike | |
|---|---|
| Part of the War in Afghanistan (2001–14) | |
| Type | Aerial attack (two GBU-38/500lb bombs) |
| Location | Kunduz City, Kunduz province, Afghanistan |
| Target | Two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban |
| Date | September 4, 2009 |
| Executed by | USAF F-15E, called in by German forces. |
| Casualties | Up to 179, with over 100 civilians killed |
The 2009 Kunduz airstrike took place on Friday 4 September 2009 at roughly 2:30 am local time, 7 km (4.3 mi) southwest of Kunduz City, Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, near the hamlets of Omar Kheil by the border of the Chahar Dara and Ali Abad districts. Responding to a call by German forces, an American F-15E fighter jet struck two fuel tankers captured by Taliban insurgents, killing over 90 civilians in the attack.
Because of the high civilian death toll, the airstrike had political repercussions, especially in Germany. In June 2010 Germany announced it would pay $5,000 to each of the families of over 100 civilian victims, as an ex gratia payment without admitting liability. The former Afghan Commerce Minister Amin Farhang described the $5,000—equivalent to about 20,000 Afghanis—as a "laughable" sum. Earlier, Germany had reclassified the Afghanistan deployment as an "armed conflict within the parameters of international law", allowing German forces to act without risk of prosecution under German law.
Kunduz province, the site of the airstrike, was largely peaceful until Taliban militants started infiltrating the area in 2009. Critics blamed the Germans for allowing the infiltration of the north by the Taliban, although in fact there has been a Taliban presence in the area since the late 1990s and several major battles were fought against them in the area during the US/Northern Alliance invasion in 2001. The Germans insisted that they were taking a more aggressive stance, and that 300 of their soldiers had killed or captured a number of insurgents in recent times. The events leading up to the American airstrike early Friday morning began the previous evening, as two fuel tankers were transporting fuel from Tajikistan into Afghanistan for NATO along the Northern Distribution Network. According to The Daily Telegraph, it was roughly 22:00 local time when they were approached by a group of Taliban and Chechens (apparently foreign volunteers), who killed several of the tanker drivers by beheading them and seize their vehicles. According to the Taliban version of events, they later opened the tankers up to looters to siphon fuel after one vehicle became immobilized in mud at a river crossing. It was at this point that the tankers were located by an American B-1B, and two F-15E Strike Eagles were dispatched there.
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