Germany’s highest military officials resign

The German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg,who disclosed their resignation in the Bundestag during a debate on extending Germany’s military mission in Afghanistan,told the house that Gen Schneiderhan and Wichert withheld information on the air strike.

They took responsibility for not presenting to him a secret report on the civilian casualties in the air attack since he took office four weeks ago and were “relieved of their duties on their own request”,he said.

Their resignation comes after the mass-circulation newspaper Bild reported in today’s edition that on the basis of an investigation by the German Military Police and videos which were kept top secret until now,the ministry had information from the very beginning that details about the air attack,including civilian casualties were being held back.

The NATO air strike on two fuel trucks hijacked by the Taliban on September 4 was ordered by col Georg Klein,commander of the German contingent to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

The Military Police had documented when the information about civilian victims in the air attack was conveyed by the German regional command in northern Afghanistan to the German Armed Forces’ operational centre in Potsdam.

However,this information was not further conveyed to the prosecutor’s office,which is investigating the incident,the Bild said.

Guttenberg confirmed that the German Defence Ministry was aware that important information about the air strike was held back when his predecessor and the present Labour Minister Mr Franz-Josef Jung was in charge of the ministry.

Both Gen Schneidehan and Wichert have taken the responsibility for that,he said. Gen Schneiderhan has been at the head of the German armed forces since June,2002.

The air strike had caused a friction in Germany’s relations with the leadership of the NATO-led ISAF after its commander Gen Stanley McCrystal of the United States accused Col Klein of violating their rules of engagement in Afghanistan and ordering the air attack without sufficiently verifying whether civilians were in the area.

Col Klein,however,defended his action saying he called in a NATO aircraft to blow up the trucks because he was certain that the Taliban would have taken the oil trucks to the nearby German military base in Kundus to carry out a suicide attack.

A NATO report said that 142 people,including a number of civilians were killed in the air attack.

Meanwhile,Germany’s opposition parties have demanded Jung to take responsibility for the cover up and to step down.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) said it would seek a parliamentary enquiry commission to investigate whether the defence ministry “systematically held back information from the parliament and the public”.