German military says five soldiers killed in ordnance accident in Kabul

Posted 11:33AM on Wednesday 6th March 2002 ( 23 years ago )

BERLIN - Anti-aircraft missiles that peacekeepers in the Afghan capital Kabul were trying to defuse exploded Wednesday, killing two German and three Danish soldiers, the top officer in the Germany military said. In addition to the five dead, seven soldiers were injured, three of them seriously, Gen. Harald Kujat said. Kujat said the soldiers were attempting to destroy two Russian-made SA-3 ground-to-air missiles with a controlled explosion at a munitions collection point about 3 miles from the German military's base in the Afghan capital. "Apparently, the explosion went off early," he told a news conference in Berlin. "The soldiers were still in the area close to the two missiles." The origin of the missiles was unclear, and Kujat said he did not know whether one or both exploded in the incident Wednesday afternoon. He gave no details on the dead or injured. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed condolences to the families of the dead soldiers, calling it a tragic accident. He said, however, that the accident should not raise questions about Germany's deployment in the region. "It was a task that did not have anything to do with military conflict. There is no reason to question the mission," Schroeder said. Sending German troops abroad is a sensitive topic in Germany, where antimilitary sentiment still runs deep more than half a century after World War II. Schroeder had faced strong opposition to his pledge of troops for the war on terrorism, which parliament only barely approved last year. Kujat, the inspector-general of the German armed forces, said it appeared soldiers were observing safety regulations and there was no evidence of sabotage. "This was an accident," he said. More than 700 German soldiers are part of the international security force deployed in and around the Afghan capital. About 50 Danish soldiers specialized in mine clearing were sent to Afghanistan in January. Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping was in Djibouti on Wednesday on a trip to visit German naval forces deployed in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. He cut short his trip to return to Berlin. The SA-3 has a range of 11 miles and weighs 2,100 pounds. It was designed to destroy aircraft, cruise missiles, assault helicopters and other targets at low or medium altitudes. First introduced in 1961, the missile is comparable to a MIM-23 Hawk in the U.S. arsenal. Germany has pledged a total of 3,900 troops for the anti-terror campaign, including the naval contingent deployed off the Horn of Africa, troops in Afghanistan and about 100 in neighboring Uzbekistan.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/3/202876