US Servicemen Suspended Over Kunduz Airstrike

American soldiers and airmen involved in the errant airstrike on an Afghan hospital have been suspended while awaiting disciplinary action, US military officials have said.

General John Campbell, the US commander in Afghanistan, announced the suspensions while briefing reporters on the findings of two investigations into the 3 October airstrike in Kunduz.

Twenty-two people, including 12 staff members, died after a US warplane mistakenly destroyed the clinic run by aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders.

Gen Campbell described an egregious series of human and technical failures that led to what he called a "tragic mistake".

He said the crew of an AC-130 gunship had been dispatched to hit a Taliban command centre in a nearby building, but problems with targeting sensors forced the crew to rely on a physical description of the target that led to them firing on the hospital.

Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner said without elaborating that the "investigation found that some of the US individuals involved did not follow the rules of engagement".

He said: "We made a terrible mistake that resulted in unnecessary deaths."

Gen Campbell would not say how many US military personnel had been suspended nor did he disclose their ranks.

MSF has called the air raid a "war crime" and demanded an investigation by an international commission.

The group said several doctors and nurses were killed immediately, and patients who could not move burned to death in the ensuing fire.

Others were cut down by gunfire as they attempted to flee the building, MSF said in its own report.

Staff frantically tried to call NATO and Washington as the early morning bombing continued for over an hour, the group said.

President Barack Obama contacted the aid group's international president, Joanne Liu, personally to apologise for the airstrike.

The US has also said it will make "condolence payments" to the families of those killed.