Germany's highest court on Thursday rejected compensation claims by relatives of victims of an airstrike in Afghanistan seven years ago that killed dozens of civilians.
Families of victims of a deadly air strike in Afghanistan that killed more than 90 people in 2009 have filed a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Germany, a lawyer said Friday.
The German officer who ordered an air strike that killed more than 100 Afghan civilians and cost the jobs of the defence minister, the head of the army and a senior state secretary, is to be promoted to general next year.
A lawyer representing 74 relatives of those killed in an airstrike ordered by a German colonel in Afghanistan two years ago, announced Thursday that they would be seeking damages from the German government.
A suicide bomber and two gunmen have attacked the office of a German security firm protecting aid workers in the Afghanistan city of Kunduz, in a co-ordinated assault that left at least six people dead.
The coalition parties are backing former Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg’s over his firing of a general and a civil servant after a 2009 airstrike in Afghanistan which killed up to 142 people including dozens of civilians.
The former Afghan Commerce Minister on Friday called Germany’s compensation for families of victims who died in last year’s deadly Kunduz air strike “laughable,” saying that the $5,000 was insignificant.
The families of 102 Afghan civilians killed or injured in a botched NATO air strike in Kunduz last year are to be paid $5,000 each in compensation, the German government announced Thursday.
<b>A German security guard was killed Friday when suspected Taliban militants stormed the compound of a US aid organisation in northern Afghanistan, a US embassy official said.</b>
Facing a parliamentary inquiry into the Kunduz air strike on Thursday, Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg admitted he made mistakes in the aftermath but insisted he was let down by advisors.
Four German soldiers were wounded – some seriously – when their armoured vehicle crashed in Afghanistan on Tuesday, continuing a heavy run of casualties for the Bundeswehr.
In the wake of prosecutors' decision to drop a criminal investigation into German Colonel Georg Klein over the Kunduz air strike, a leading conservative politician has demanded an end to the parliamentary inquiry into the affair.
Taliban insurgents attacked the Bundeswehr on Friday as Chancellor Angela Merkel prepared to attend a memorial service for three German soldiers killed last week in Afghanistan.
German politicians argued on Tuesday over military policy in Afghanistan and whether the Bundeswehr is being properly outfitted and trained following a deadly weekend of fighting for troops in the Kunduz region.
The Good Friday bloodshed in Afghanistan prompted German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg to break a long-standing political taboo on Sunday and call the conflict a “war.”
The German military killed five Afghan soldiers late Friday in a “friendly fire” incident when they launched an attack on two cars that failed to stop while approaching the German forces, the army has confirmed.
Three German soldiers were killed Friday in a gun battle in the Kunduz region of Afghanistan, in one of the deadliest firefights of the Bundeswehr’s mission in the war-torn country.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office was told within hours of the Kunduz air strike that civilians had been killed, despite the government’s insistence for days afterwards that only Taliban fighters had died, a report said Thursday.
The German Defence Ministry may break off negotiations with lawyers after they demanded €7 million for the families of victims of a September 2009 bombardment that killed scores of Afghan civilians near Kunduz.
Military documents detailing the events surrounding a deadly bombardment in Afghanistan now under investigation by the German parliament have reportedly been destroyed.
Colonel Georg Klein, the German commander who ordered the controversial air strike that killed up to 140 Afghans last year, appeared before an parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday after defending his actions publicly through his lawyer.
A secret NATO report found the German special forces unit the KSK had a key role in last September's controversial bombing near Kunduz in Afghanistan contrary to what the Bundeswehr has claimed.
Germany’s tepid proposals for a conference on the future of Afghanistan in London on Thursday are not enough to ensure peace and stability, argues <b>Dr. Henning Riecke</b> from the German Council on Foreign Relations.
The governor of the northern Afghan province of Kunduz has called the German military’s service there “ineffective” and said he would welcome more help from US troops.
