A disagreement over a deadly airstrike in Afghanistan this September hangs heavily over the newly elected coalition government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It may yet prove to be the undoing of her previously held support to meet a US request to send more German troops.
Germany presently has 4,500 soldiers in the country.
The botched airstrike on two fuel trucks – which had been hijacked by Taliban insurgents – killed circa 100 people including 40 to 50 civilians.
Ms. Merkel’s government is under severe pressure by the press and opposition politicians to come clean, following newly leaked revelations about the airstrike in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan. Her government is being accused of covering up its role in the airstrike during the German election.
It is an unwelcome mess dropped onto the lap of the new Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. He is a rising star of German conservatism who justified the attack until last week but now has changed his view after recent Nato leaks.
These have proved that the German military knew all along of the civilian casualties but pretended not to have known.
It has also been revealed today that Germany wants to pay compensation to the families of victims of the US airstrike which a commander in the German army had ordered in Afghanistan. The government says it has opened negotiations to deal with claims by 78 Afghan families. This at time of stringent cutbacks in public spending domestically and this at time when the whole involvement of Germany in Afghanistan is being repeatedly questioned.
The “Christian Social Union”, the CSU, itself a coalition partner, has also recently come out against sending more troops to Afghanistan.
Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan has always been and remains controversial and unpopular.
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