HEADLINES:
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R/£ General, official quit over deadly air strike
November 27, 2009 Edition 4
BERLIN: Germany's top general and a senior defence ministry official resigned yesterday over an air strike in Afghanistan in which Nato says as many as 142 people died.
The resignations, announced in parliament by Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, followed press revelations that a military report about the September 4 strike was suppressed.
Germany, with about 4 300 troops, is the third-largest contributor of foreign troops in Afghanistan after the United States and Britain.
Chief of staff General Wolfgang Schneiderhan "has released himself from his duties at his own request," Zu Guttenberg said. "State secretary (Peter) Wichert is also taking responsibility."
Zu Guttenberg, who took over from Franz Josef Jung only last month, confirmed that the report into the strike had been withheld.
A German commander, Colonel Georg Klein, called in the Nato air strike against two tanker trucks carrying fuel that had been seized by Taliban insurgents near Kunduz.
Bild newspaper cited a confidential army video and report that the paper said showed that Klein could not rule out the presence of civilians around the trucks when he ordered the strike. - Sapa-AFP
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