BERLIN — Germany’s labor minister resigned Friday after conceding that he didn’t see a military report on a deadly September airstrike in northern Afghanistan while he held the government’s defense portfolio.
Labor Minister Franz Josef Jung made the announcement a day after the head of Germany’s armed forces, Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and Deputy Defense Minister Peter Wichert also stepped down.
Jung said he was taking responsibility for the fact that the German military report on the Sept. 4 airstrike didn’t reach him, despite his being defense minister at the time.
An Afghan commission has said that 30 civilians were killed along with 69 armed Taliban fighters in the NATO airstrike in Kunduz that was ordered by a German colonel who feared the Taliban might use two tanker trucks it had seized to attack troops.
Germany’s response — the resignation of three senior officials — could be seen as severe for a NATO country in the 8-year-old Afghanistan war. However, Germany, whose troops serve in Afghanistan’s relatively stable north, previously had been largely spared such incidents.
It also was an embarrassment weeks after the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, had ordered commanders to be sure targets were clear of civilians before any airstrike.
Germany has more than 4,000 troops in northern Afghanistan, and 36 have died there.
