WASHINGTON — The U.S. warplane that may have been responsible for dozens of civilian casualties in southern Afghanistan opened fire because its crew believed they were taking fire from anti-aircraft weapons, a senior American general said Tuesday.
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said many facts about the episode have yet to be learned, including how many people were killed.
At the White House, press secretary Ari Fleischer issued a statement expressing President Bush's "deep condolences for the loss of innocent life no matter what the cause is determined to be."
"We do not yet know what exactly happened, and we are working very hard to find out," Fleischer said.
According to Pace, an Air Force B-52 bomber, which launched seven satellite-guided bombs at suspected al-Qaida and Taliban cave and bunker complexes in the same area, apparently played no role in the civilian casualties. One of the seven bombs malfunctioned, but it landed in an uninhabited area, Pace said.
That left at least two possible sources of the fire that struck civilians: an Air Force AC-130 gunship or the anti-aircraft artillery, which could have fallen back to the ground and struck civilians. Of the two, officials said the most likely source was the AC-130.
The plane is an Air Force special operations aircraft outfitted with side-firing cannons and 105mm howitzers. It is sort of a flying artillery battery, and it has been used extensively throughout the war.
Pace said the AC-130 returned fire on six locations spread over several miles. He did not say whether all six were believed to be anti-aircraft artillery sites or exactly where any were.
Afghans said 40 civilians were killed and 100 were wounded, including women and children celebrating a wedding. Some believe that celebratory gunfire at the wedding may have been mistaken by the Americans for hostile fire, but U.S. officials said they had no evidence to support that theory.
At a hospital in Kandahar, Sardar Gul, 25, said yesterday that a bomb dropped on the home of the wedding party host and many were killed. Gul, whose 8-year-old cousin was among the wounded, said the partiers were firing rifles in the air in the local form of celebration that night. But he said he heard and saw no airplanes during the shooting.
The Afghan government demanded that the United States take "all necessary measures" to avoid more civilian casualties as its troops hunt for al-Qaida fighters.
Foreign Minister Abdullah told reporters in Kabul that coalition military operations against al-Qaida and Taliban should continue, but the procedures for launching attacks should be reviewed.
"This situation has to come to an end," Abdullah said. "Mistakes can take place, human errors are possible, but our people should be assured that every measure was taken to avoid such incidents."
At a Pentagon news conference with Pace, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said it was too soon to know for certain that U.S. forces were responsible for the civilian casualties, but he noted that American commanders in Afghanistan had expressed regret "for any innocent loss of life."
The episode apparently was the worst loss of civilian life at American hands since the war in Afghanistan began, and Pace said U.S. and Afghan officials were determined to get to the bottom of it.
Rumsfeld said a team of U.S. military and civilian officials, joined by representatives of the Afghan government, would spend a day or two at the site about 175 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital.
Rumsfeld said that despite efforts to limit civilian casualties, they are inevitable in war.
"It is going to happen. It always has and I'm afraid it always will," he said. "And the task for all of us is to see that it is as limited as possible, and to make darn sure when something happens like what just took place, that we don't presume to think we know about it until we have completed some sort of an investigation, which we have not."
The circumstances of Monday's events remained blurry.
Pace said as many as 400 U.S. and Afghan ground forces were conducting a reconnaissance and search operation in Uruzgan province. The B-52 attacked cave and bunker complexes and the AC-130 was airborne in case allied ground forces came under attack.
There also were U.S. special operations troops acting as forward air controllers on the ground at two locations in the area, Rumsfeld said. They apparently reported seeing anti-aircraft artillery fire, and the AC-130 responded by firing back. Pace said the AC-130 itself was taking anti-aircraft artillery fire, although it was not hit.
"The only thing I am sure of is, at the time the weapons from the AC-130 were being fired at the ground … the air crew in the airplane believed they were returning fire against anti-aircraft weapons, which has happened repeatedly in that particular area and which was reported to be taking place at the time that the AC-130 fired," Pace said.
Pace would not say specifically what had brought the U.S. and allied operation in that area.
"I cannot go into specifics of what the intelligence was that justified the operation," he said. "I can tell you that this is an area that is known to have in the past been home of Taliban and al-Qaida and that we had intelligence that indicated it would be worthwhile to go back and revisit."
