American drone crew blamed in fatal Afghan air strike

KABUL - The U.S. military has reprimanded six operators of an unmanned drone, which mistakenly attacked a civilian convoy in Afghanistan killing at least 23 people in February, according to a report released yesterday.

Release of the scathing report is part of a U.S. effort to counter rising public anger over civilian deaths, which threatens to undermine the campaign against the Taliban at a critical juncture in the nearly nine-year war.

Four American officers - two described as senior - received career-damaging reprimands, the U.S. command said in a statement.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, called on the Air Force to investigate the actions of the Predator crew.

"Our most important mission here is to protect the Afghan people," said McChrystal, who had apologized to President Hamid Karzai shortly after the attack. "Inadvertently killing or injuring civilians is heartbreaking and undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will do all we can to regain that trust."

The attack also underscores the risks of using unmanned aircraft to fire on insurgents.

The deadly attack occurred Feb. 21 after the unmanned aircraft, controlled by a crew at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., spotted three vehicles on a main road in Uruzgan province about seven miles from where U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers were tracking insurgents.

Suspecting the convoy contained fighters, the ground commander ordered an airstrike, and U.S. helicopters fired missiles at the vehicles, the report said.

But the attack order was based on inaccurate information from the Predator crew and a flawed analysis of the situation by U.S. commanders, according to the author of the report, Army Maj. Gen. Timothy McHale.