CHANCELLOR ANGELA Merkel has warned she will “not tolerate” premature criticism that Germany used excessive force in ordering a Nato airstrike in Afghanistan that killed at least 78 people including civilians.
The growing controversy over the bombing of two stolen fuel tankers has shaken up a lacklustre general election campaign and put Germany’s controversial military deployments at the top of the agenda – exactly where the main political parties didn’t want it.
“Contradictory statements about . . . the number of deaths mean it won’t be possible to clear things up today,” said Dr Merkel to the Bundestag yesterday.
After expressing regret for Afghan civilian deaths resulting from German actions, she used unusually sharp language to attack criticism from Nato partners.
“I will not tolerate that,” said Dr Merkel brusquely, “neither at home nor abroad.” Tensions have arisen, particular with the US, over claims from Nato partners that the air strike was ill-judged and that it demolishes a new Nato strategy in Afghanistan to reduce civilian casualties.
Opposition parties demanded the resignation of defence minister Franz Josef Jung yesterday for claiming immediately after the attack that no civilians were killed.
“Your strategy is cover up, deny and then, when there’s no other option, ‘I excuse myself for what I previously said’,” said leading Green Party politician Jürgen Trittin.
A preliminary Nato investigation confirmed yesterday that innocent civilians as well as insurgents were killed and injured in the air- strike after the hijacking by Taliban militants of two petrol tanker trucks near the northern town of Kunduz.
Four days after the attack, confusion still surrounds the exact death toll: a preliminary Nato report suggests up to 78 were killed. Local officials in Afghanistan first said 56 people were killed then revised that figure up to 135 dead and 27 injured, including many children.
A decade after its first post-war military deployment in Kosovo, the incident has revived growing unhappiness in Germany about its military role in the world.
Dr Merkel acknowledged as much yesterday, using most of her Bundestag speech to remind voters why Germany sent troops to participate in the Nato mission in Afghanistan: as an answer to the September 11th attacks, eight years ago on Friday.
“The consequences of not acting will affect us just as much as the consequences of acting,” she said. “The mission in Afghanistan is our reaction to terrorism. It originated from there, and not the other way around.”
Germany has sent over 4,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in a mandate which, though tightly controlled by parliament, has changed drastically since they arrived in 2001 in what was the largely peaceful northern region.
Initially, their posting around Kunduz kept German soldiers away from active combat and allowed politicians to sell the mission to a sceptical public at home as being about peacekeeping and reconstruction.
But the situation has changed drastically in recent months and German troops are increasingly under attack from the Taliban.
With two-thirds of Germans already opposed to the military deployment, politicians are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the idea that German troops are involved in peacekeeping rather than outright war against the Taliban.
In an apparent concession to growing pressure for a clear exit strategy, Dr Merkel has called for an Afghanistan conference before the year-end.
She said yesterday that local Afghan security forces must “make enough progress in the next five years to allow international troops to steadily reduce their role”.
Analysts suggested yesterday that her call for the conference – agreed with London and Paris but not with Washington – was a deliberate snub to the US in retaliation for recent criticism.
