US admits it may have killed aid workers

The US has admitted it may have killed a number of aid workers in an air raid in northern Afghanistan.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says at least three of its staff were killed when a hospital in the city of Kunduz was hit during air raids.

It says up to 30 are still missing.

Kunduz has been the scene of fierce battles since it was overrun by the Taliban last Monday.

They have since been driven from the centre, where they briefly raised their flag, but still occupy other parts of the town.

A NATO spokesman, Colonel Brian Tribus, said US forces launched an air strike on Kunduz at 2.15 am on Saturday.

"The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility," he said.  "This incident is under investigation."

MSF said its trauma centre was hit several times during sustained bombing and was partially destroyed.

"We are deeply shocked by the attack, the killing of our staff and patients and the heavy toll it has inflicted on healthcare in Kunduz," the charity's operations director, Bart Janssens, said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Taliban said none of its fighters were in the hospital at the time of the raid.

The US military has carried out a number of air strikes this week in support of government forces in Kunduz, which is the provincial capital and the fifth largest city in Afghanistan.

According to Afghan officials, over 200 Taliban militants have been killed since the operations began late on Friday night.

Security forces are now conducting search operations to weed out any remaining fighters hidden in the city of 300,000 people.

The fall of a strategic provincial capital to the Taliban for the first time since 2001 has been a stinging blow to the government and security forces.

On the other hand it has been a powerful propaganda tool for the militants, especially for Mullah Mansoor, the new commander of the Taliban after the death of Mullah Omar.

It has been barely nine months since the US and NATO ended their combat mission in Afghanistan. Only 13,000 foreign troops remain for training and counter-terrorism operations in the country.

The fall of Kunduz, however brief, is the first serious challenge for the year-old government of President Ashraf Ghani.

It has also raised questions about the capabilities of the Afghan security forces as they now have to battle the Taliban on their own.

(Sky News)