US medical team attacked in Afghanistan

Rebels attacked a US military medical team as it was helping villagers in the same region of eastern Afghanistan where a US airstrike that killed up to 17 civilians sparked sharp criticism from the government.

No one was wounded in the assault yesterday on the medical team near Asadabad town, Kunar province, a military statement said. US forces used mortars to respond and the insurgents fled.

“It’s incredible to us the enemy would attack our forces while we are providing innocent Afghans with health care,” said US military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara.

The airstrike last Friday was also in Kunar and targeted a known terrorist base, the US military said, but an Afghan government spokesman said the deaths of the civilians, including women and children, could not be justified.

It marked unusual criticism from the government of President Hamid Karzai, often viewed by ritics as an American puppet. The US provides security for the president as well as hundreds of millions of dollars a year in aid to Afghanistan.

The reprimand also highlighted Afghan government concern that deadly mistakes could erode public support for the US presence there. In the past, Karzai’s government has expressed interest in long-term US military presence in the region as Afghanistan struggles to recover from nearly 25 years of war.

US forces, meanwhile, spent an eighth day scouring mountains in Kunar searching for the final member of an elite four-man Navy Seal commando team that went missing on June 28.

One Seal has been rescued, while the bodies of two others were recovered on Monday and taken to the main US base in Afghanistan, at Bagram, a US military statement said. A transport helicopter sent in to rescue the four was shot down the day the team went missing, killing all 16 US servicemen aboard.

O’Hara said rescuers searching for the final missing team member were “still hopeful,” adding, “until you know otherwise, you have to assume he is alive.”

A US military statement said the sole rescued serviceman was receiving medical treatment for “non-life-threatening injuries” at the Bagram base.

The air strike that killed civilians targeted a house in the same area. The number of people killed was still unclear, but “roughly half” may have been civilians, while the rest were Taliban or al-Qaida fighters, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

US forces described the house as “a known operating base for terrorist attacks … as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader.”

“We deeply regret any loss of civilian life in the course of military actions,” said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the US military takes “great strides” in trying to be precise when targeting combatants.

“But these things do occur and we obviously regret them when they do. And we’ll investigate to be able to determine what may have happened and how it can be avoided in the future,” he said.

Jawed Ludin, Karzai’s chief of staff, said “there is no way … the killing of civilians can be justified.”

“The president is extremely saddened and disturbed,” he said. “It’s the terrorists we are fighting. It’s not our people who should suffer.”

An Afghan government team is on its way to the site to probe the bombing, a Defence Ministry statement said.

An initial US air strike destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the damage, a US warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target, killing 17 people, including three women and children, Kunar provincial Gov. Asadullah Wafa said.

He said it was unclear who was killed in the initial attack on the tiny village of Chechal.