(For more on Afghanistan, click on [ID:nAFPAK]) KABUL, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Nearly 100 people, including 30 civilians, were killed in a NATO air strike called in by German troops on two hijacked fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan this month, a government-appointed official said on Sunday. The Sept. 4 strike in northern Kunduz province has drawn domestic and international criticism and has stirred intense debate in Germany over Berlin's strategy in Afghanistan, two weeks before an election. President Hamid Karzai said last week the air strike was a major "error of judgement" by German forces and sent his own commission to the area to investigate. "Based on our interviews with local officials, villagers and the district governor, we have found that 119 people were killed and wounded," Mohammadullah Baktash, one of the investigators of Karzai's appointed commission, told Reuters on Sunday. "Thirty civilians were killed and nine were wounded. Sixty-nine Taliban were killed, 49 of those were armed and 20 were unarmed, and 11 Taliban were wounded," he said. Last Monday, Afghan Rights Monitor, a prominent domestic rights group, said based on their own interviews with residents, between 60 and 70 civilians were killed in the strike. The incident was the first in which Western forces were accused of killing large numbers of civilians since McChrystal took command of foreign forces in June announcing that protecting Afghans was a priority. NATO has yet to finish its investigation but acknowledges that civilians were killed. Asked whether he thought the air strike had been neccessary, Baktash said it was up to Karzai to decide. "We were there to investigate how many people were killed. We cannot say whether the air strike was neccessary or not. We will present our report to Karzai and it will be up to him to investigate with the Germans," Baktash said. (Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Ralph Boulton) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
A man loads the back of a truck with his belongings while fleeing Bara, located in Pakistan's Khyber Agency, September 13, 2009, days after security forces launched an offensive against local ...
