US analysts knew Afghan site was hospital

WASHINGTON -- American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on an Afghan hospital days before it was destroyed by a U.S. military attack because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned.

It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital -- killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff -- were aware the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity. The Pentagon initially said the attack was to protect U.S. troops engaged in a firefight and since has said it was a mistake.

The special operations analysts had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled, along with indications intelligence agencies were tracking the location of the Pakistani operative and activity reports based on overhead surveillance, according to a former intelligence official who is familiar with some of the documents describing the site. The intelligence suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center and may have housed heavy weapons.

After the attack -- which came amidst a battle to retake the northern Afghan city of Kunduz from the Taliban -- some U.S. analysts assessed the strike had been justified, the former officer said. They concluded the Pakistani, believed to have been working for his country's Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, had been killed.

No evidence has surfaced publicly to support those conclusions about the Pakistani's connections or his demise. The former intelligence official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The top U.S. officer in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, has said the strike was a mistake, but he has not explained exactly how it happened or who granted final approval. He also told Congress he was ordering all personnel in Afghanistan to be retrained on the rules governing the circumstances under which strikes are acceptable.

The new details about the military's suspicions the hospital was being misused complicate an already murky picture and add to the unanswered questions about one of the worst civilian casualty incidents of the Afghan war. They also raise the possibility of a breakdown in intelligence sharing and communication across the military chain of command.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said questions about what the Defense Department knew about the clinic and whether it was communicated to personnel operating the gunship would be part of the Pentagon's investigation. He said President Barack Obama was expecting a "full accounting."

"As Gen. Campbell has said, we would never intentionally target a protected medical facility," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement. "We have confidence that the ongoing investigations into this tragic incident will uncover exactly what happened and why this hospital was mistakenly struck."

The international humanitarian agency that ran the facility, Doctors Without Borders, has condemned the bombing as a war crime. The organization said the strike killed 12 hospital staff and 10 patients, and that death toll may rise. It insists no gunmen, weapons or ammunition were in the building.

The U.S. and Afghan governments have launched three separate investigations.

President Barack Obama has apologized, but Doctors Without Borders is calling for an international probe.

Doctors Without Borders officials said the U.S. airplane made five separate strafing runs over an hour, directing heavy fire on the main hospital building, which contained the emergency room and intensive care unit.

Typically, pilots flying air support missions would have maps showing protected sites such as hospitals and mosques.

If commanders concluded enemies were operating from a protected site, they would follow procedures designed to minimize civilian casualties. That generally would mean surrounding a building with troops, not blowing it to bits from the air.