Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Monday that Afghan forces requested the U.S. airstrike that that killed 22 people at a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on Saturday.
"We have now learned that on Oct. 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces," Campbell stated at a press conference Monday, the Associated Press reported.
"An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports which indicated that U.S. forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf."
The airstrike, which occurred early Saturday morning, killed aid workers and patients at the facility, which is run by Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières.
"If errors were committed we will acknowledge them," Campbell stated Monday.
Initially, Col. Brian Tibus, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said that the hospital may have been "collateral damage" in a strike against Taliban fighters "threatening the force."
"U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15 a.m. [local time] on October 3 against individuals threatening the force," Tibus said Saturday. "The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This incident is under investigation."
Both President Obama and Defense Secretary Ash Carter have promised that the Pentagon would conduct an investigation into the incident.
"The Department of Defense has launched a full investigation, and we will await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgment as to the circumstances of this tragedy," Obama said Saturday.
"We do know that American air assets … were engaged in the Kunduz vicinity. And we do know that the structures that--you see in the news--were destroyed," Carter told to journalists Sunday before embarking on a five-day trip to Europe. "I just can’t tell you what the connection is at this time."
Médecins Sans Frontières blamed the U.S. for the loss of life at the hospital.
"This attack is abhorrent and a grave violation of international humanitarian law," the charity’s president, Meinie Nicolai, said. "We demand total transparency from coalition forces. We cannot accept that this horrific loss of life will simply be dismissed as ‘collateral damage.’"
The group’s general director, Christopher Stokes, said Sunday that "relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient," labeling the incident a "war crime." He also refuted claims from Afghan forces that Taliban members had been firing from the grounds of the hospital.
The charity said on social media Sunday that the hospital in Afghanistan is no longer functional. Patients and staff members have been relocated to other facilities in the area, according to a Médecins Sans Frontières representative.
"The situation there is confused and complicated. So it may take some time to get the facts, but we will get the facts and we will be full and transparent about sharing them," Carter said Sunday, promising that the U.S. would hold anyone accountable who was "responsible for doing something they shouldn’t have done."