RT  North Dakota, which ranks second in the US in terms of oil production, endured almost 300 oil spills in under two years and yet managed to avoid reporting a single one of them to the public, according to a new report.  Documents viewed by the Associated Press indicate that, since January 2012, as many as 750 " oil field incidents " were recorded in North Dakota. The distinction between spills and incidents was not immediately clear but presumably was related to the magnitude of the accident.  North Dakota, which borders Canada and has an estimated population of under 700,000 people, is like many other states heavily involved in oil production in that it is not required by law to inform the public about oil spills. Yet with the potentially devastating consequences a spill could have in a state that relies on farming and water resources, citizens have begun lobbying for greater access to information.  Dennis Fewless, director of water quality for the state Health Department, told the AP lawmakers and regulators in North Dakota are also reconsidering the current state of affairs after a wheat farmer stumbled across a major oil spill last month. That incident was not made public knowledge until 11 days later, when reporters asked. Questions have also been raised as to whether the relationship between the pipeline's operator, Tesoro Logistics, with regulators is too close for comfort.  " We're certainly looking at that now and what would be a threshold for reporting to the public ," he said. One option he said regulators are considering is a method to better track the spills that occur. Officials " really have to dig through our database to get specifics ," he said of the current situation.  North Dakota pumps out millions of barrels of oil every day and installed nearly 2,500 miles of new transport pipelines in 2012. There is now enough pipeline, a total of about 17,500 miles, in North Dakota to travel the distance from Los Angeles, California to New York City. The state ranks behind only Texas as the most productive, yet farmers are still unaware that the land they till every season could be tainted.  " What you don't know, nobody is going to tell you ," Louis Kuster, a wheat farmer located near the north-western city of Stanley, said. Kuster explained how, earlier this month, he watched as truckloads of oily dirt were driven away from a nearby farm.  " We have no idea how big the spill is and why it happened ," he said, speculating it may have been from a broken pipeline although no one can be quite sure. " I'd try to get more information from the state but I'm too busy getting my harvest in ."  In 2013 alone there have already been 291 so-called "incidents." Of the roughly 2,209 barrels that were lost, all but 490 were contained and cleaned up at the well site. Most of the spills that companies reported to the state totaled less than 10 barrels.  Nearly 500 barrels of oil spilled in 2012, the result of 153 pipeline leaks.  " That's news to us ," said Don Morrison, director of the environmentally-minded Dakota Resource Council. " The public really should know about these. If there is a spill, sometimes a landowner may not even know about it. And if they do, people think it's an isolated incident that's only happening to them ."


As James Bond s nemesis Auric Goldfinger famously observed, Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action. On Tuesday evening, three prominent Republicans Senator John McCain, Senator Marco Rubio, and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney endorsed the left-wing media s preferred narrative and embraced the masked thugs of Antifa as heroes.No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes. Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) August 16, 2017Twitter users hit back at Romney, who likely has no idea who Antifa really is and the danger the violent, anti free-speech, Soros-funded poses to Americans:The fact that you view Antifa as moral and acceptable is beyond disgusting. No wonder you lost resoundingly in your presidential run. Alex (@SoCal4Trump) August 16, 2017McCain and Romney used almost identical language, bending their knees to the media narrative that only two factions were present in Charlottesville during the awful events of last weekend: white supremacist Nazis and Americans standing up to defy hate and bigotry. There's no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) August 16, 2017Senator John McCain got hammered by this Twitter user for not recognizing the violence Antifa has inflicted on innocent Trump supporters as a way to shut down free speech. This collage of photos is a not-so-subtle reminder:Here John, u uninformed piece of shit, are the faces of innocent peaceful rally attendees assaulted by Antifa. Antifa went looking for a war pic.twitter.com/K8fqKkAnH7 TexasStrong.357 (@SonofLiberty357) August 16, 2017As James Bond s nemesis Auric Goldfinger famously observed, Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action. On Tuesday evening, three prominent Republicans Senator John McCain, Senator Marco Rubio, and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney endorsed the left-wing media s preferred narrative and embraced the masked thugs of Antifa as heroes.McCain and Romney used almost identical language, bending their knees to the media narrative that only two factions were present in Charlottesville during the awful events of last weekend: white supremacist Nazis and Americans standing up to defy hate and bigotry. Senator Rubio, who just can t seem to get over his loss to President Trump, took to Twitter to defend the violent Antifa group and condemn President Trump for including them in his condemnation of the violence that took place in Charlottesville:The organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons. 1/6 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017They are adherents of an evil ideology which argues certain people are inferior because of race, ethnicity or nation of origin. 2/6 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you,it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them 3/6 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017So, is Marco Rubio condoning the type of violence by Antifa that Trump supporters are met with on a regular basis simply for daring to utter a viewpoint that is in opposition to the #AltLeft?Most people disagree with you, Marco. These people absolutely deserve blame for their violence. ANY violence & hate is contemptible pic.twitter.com/fqtomLASmK Steph (@steph93065) August 16, 2017Senator Rubio probably doesn t visit the Antifa website, but if he did, he might have seen this special credit card sized knife that Antifa was selling on their website for their members to use at Trump rallies to stab people they disagree with:These groups today use SAME symbols & same arguments of #Nazi & #KKK, groups responsible for some of worst crimes against humanity ever 4/6 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017Mr. President,you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain 5/6 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017Republican Rep Steven Smith shared a video with Senator Rubio, who apparently needs visual aids to see why President Trump was unwilling to call the violence in Charlottesville one-sided :Have you seen the video? No police protection, two violent groups. Clearly two, with one blocking the road. How is it one-sided? pic.twitter.com/0W5CYqPT6M Rep. Steven Smith (@RepStevenSmith) August 16, 2017The #WhiteSupremacy groups will see being assigned only 50% of blame as a win.We can not allow this old evil to be resurrected 6/6 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 15, 2017Rubio s third tweet explicitly endorses violent responses to hate speech, but the last one is the money shot, as Rubio embraces the essence of Whataboutism and agrees with the media that left-wing thuggery is a fact on the Charlottesville ground that must be ignored if we are to properly condemn white nationalism.McCain and Romney are politically irrelevant, but Rubio still has political ambitions. Imagine the priceless look of surprise on his face when he gets branded a Nazi because he favors pro-growth tax cuts, free-market reforms, or balks at allowing illegal aliens to vote. He ll be so astounded at the way hate speech is expanded to cover his policy positions, and how the next wave of Antifa thugs justifies a violent response. Breitbart News


In a normal convention season, most politicians are working every lever to try to get a prime speaking slot and bathe themselves in the glow of the party's nominee. Then there is this year. Far from straining to get close to Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, more than a dozen senators suddenly have scheduling conflicts for an event that has been on the political calendar for more than a year. Instead of being in Cleveland, for instance, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona says he will be "mowing my lawn. " The state's senior senator, John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, has a conflict, too: He is planning to trek the Grand Canyon (Mr. McCain, who said he supports Mr. Trump, also has a fight). Steve Daines of Montana will use the time to hone his "fly fishing. " _____ Senators in tough races had an easy call when it came to buying a ticket to Cleveland: no mistake by the lake for them. Rather than get national exposure, along with being associated with Mr. Trump, many vulnerable incumbents like Mr. McCain are going it alone. Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Marco Rubio of Florida and Roy Blunt of Missouri all say they will be campaigning, for themselves. _____ Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Dean Heller of Nevada say they just want to reconnect with constituents. Michael D. Crapo will be conducting town meetings in Idaho. Jerry Moran of Kansas will be on a "listening tour" in his state. Thad Cochran of Mississippi will not be going for personal and family reasons. _____ Winning the medal for putting the most distance between a senator and Mr. Trump: Lisa Murkowski will be almost 4, 000 miles away in Alaska flying around remote areas of her state on a bush plane. _____ Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, John Thune of South Dakota, Jim Risch of Idaho and David Vitter of Louisiana. _____ Distance is not an excuse for Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. Mr. Portman's staff said he will stick around his home state and attend the convention. But the senator will be off campus at least twice when he does volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity and a Wounded Warriors kayaking event. _____ Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Boozman of Arkansas, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Dan Coats of Indiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, John Hoeven of North Dakota, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Mike Lee of Utah, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Pat Roberts of Kansas, David Perdue of Georgia, Michael Rounds of South Dakota, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.


South Africa s Supreme Court more than doubled Oscar Pistorius murder sentence on Friday, accepting prosecutors argument that the original jail term of six years for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shockingly lenient . The gold medal-winning athlete, a double amputee known as the Blade Runner for his carbon-fibre prosthetics, was not in court to hear the new sentence of 13 years and five months handed down. Steenkamp s family were also absent but welcomed the revised term the minimum 15 years prescribed for murder, minus the time Pistorius has already served and said it showed justice could prevail in South Africa. This is an emotional thing for them. They just feel that their trust in the justice system has been confirmed this morning, Tania Koen, a family spokeswoman, told Reuters. Rights groups in a country beset by high levels of violent crime against women say Pistorius, 31, received preferential treatment compared to non-whites and those without his wealth or celebrity status. Barry Steenkamp, the father of the slain model, told SABC television the family could now get on with their lives. I always, from the beginning, said justice had not been served, now it has, he said. In the same interview, her mother June Steenkamp said: We felt that we didn t have justice for Reeva by that too-lenient sentence but now we have justice for her. Pistorius elder brother Carl wrote on Twitter: Shattered. Heartbroken. Gutted. The athlete s lawyers could not be reached for comment. The athlete was jailed in July last year after being found guilty on appeal of murdering model and law graduate Steenkamp on Valentine s Day 2013 by firing four shots through a locked bathroom door. The case attracted worldwide interest. He had originally been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail. That conviction was increased to murder by the Supreme Court in December 2015 and his sentence extended to six years by trial judge Thokozile Masipa in July last year. Masipa said in court that while the Steenkamps had suffered a great loss, fallen hero Pistorius life and career were also in ruins, and that a long prison term would not serve justice . Pistorius appearance during the trial without his prostheses had drawn gasps from the courtroom. In a scathing criticism, the appeals court said Masipa s ruling had erred in deviating from the prescribed minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment for murder. The sentence of six years imprisonment is shockingly lenient, to a point where it has the effect of trivializing this serious offence, said Judge Willie Seriti, who read out the unanimous court decision. I am of the view that there are no substantial and compelling circumstances which can justify the departure from the prescribed minimum sentence. Seriti also censured Pistorius, saying his apology to the deceased s family during the hearing did not demonstrate any genuine remorse on his part and that he does not appreciate the gravity of his actions . State prosecutors led by advocate Andrea Johnson had told the appeals hearing this month that there were no mitigating circumstances to justify Pistorius six-year sentence. Defense lawyer Barry Roux argued that Pistorius did not deliberately kill Steenkamp and the appeal should be thrown out. Roux had said during the July 2016 trial that Pistorius disability and mental distress following the killing should be considered as reasons to reduce his sentence. Pistorius reached the semi-finals of the 400 meters at the London Olympics in 2012 and took two golds in the Paralympics. Even in prison, he has been in the news. In August, he was allowed out to attend his maternal grandmother s funeral and spent a night in hospital for what local media reports said was a suspected heart attack. In August 2016, the athlete denied trying to kill himself after he was treated in hospital for wrist injuries. On Pistorius birthday on Wednesday, his father Henke told local YOU magazine that although he was behind bars, it was still a special day for his family, full of love and tears . Legal analysts said Pistorius could still appeal to the Constitutional Court, South Africa s topmost legal authority but saw his chances of success as slim. I don t think it s over. He has one more option, said lawyer Ulrich Roux, who is not linked to the Pistorius defense. All the same there are few grounds of success in this venture, to be honest. Lawyer Zola Majavu said the Constitutional Court was unlikely to agree to hear the case. In my view, that will be a very tall order. It is pretty much the end of the road for Pistorius.


ORLANDO, Fla. — The city announced Friday that the $7 million it collected after the nightclub shooting would be given directly to family members and survivors instead of being distributed through charities and nonprofit groups. The change was necessary, Mayor Buddy Dyer said, because survivors of the nightclub attack and relatives needed help immediately with expenses like rent and groceries. "We are working through exactly the way they are going to do that," Mr. Dyer said. "The most important thing is to do it right, do it transparently and make sure our funders are comfortable with how we are doing this. " A charitable and advocacy organization, the National Center for Victims of Crime, which is based in Washington, had criticized Orlando's plan to distribute money via nonprofits, saying that too little money donated in that manner had made its way to victims and their families after similar tragedies. Of the $7 million collected for the OneOrlando fund, Mr. Dyer said, $6. 5 million came from corporations. With the move, Orlando is the latest to shift away from established charities and opt for direct donations, a move that has become increasingly common, in part because of questions about how some charities use donations. The shooting early Sunday at Pulse, a gay nightclub, left 49 people dead and more than 50 wounded. The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State during a phone call to the authorities in the midst of the attack. Mr. Mateen was killed in a gunfight. Here in Orlando, the families of victims are already receiving help with funerals and airfare, Mr. Dyer said. In Puerto Rico, a representative of the governor's office said each family was receiving $7, 500 to bury loved ones. Mr. Dyer made the announcement at the Camping World Stadium, once known as the Citrus Bowl, where 35 agencies have set up to offer services to the family members. Already 94 families and 256 people have received help, Mr. Dyer said. The city has also established a board led by Alex Martins, chief executive of the Orlando Magic basketball team, to develop a plan to distribute the money. The outpouring for Orlando has raised millions through traditional charities and online campaigns, including through crowdfunding websites. On one such site, GoFundMe, more than 300 campaigns have raised $6. 2 million, including $5. 2 million by Equality Florida, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, a GoFundMe spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, said. "There is a real power to being able to give to an individual story and being able to follow that story," Mr. Pfeiffer said. "It is the power of those individual stories. " Charity officials said the individual campaigns were also a reflection of the public's concern that their donations get to the people for which they were intended. After the terrorist attacks in September 2001, the American Red Cross came under intense criticism for collecting millions of dollars in the name of the victims and then making plans to use the money elsewhere. Eventually, the Red Cross agreed to use all of its $543 million Liberty Disaster Fund to assist those affected by the attacks. Specialists in charitable giving said Orlando's decision could alter how local governments handle the sudden outpouring of money from the public after natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and mass shootings like the one in Newtown, Conn. "There have been so many scandals we've seen after these sorts of situations, so it is a big deal that they've bypassed nonprofits because it shows a distrust in how nonprofits are doing things," said Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. "This sends a big message, too, because other cities might decide to use this as a model in the future. " Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, said Friday that the group, as well as some family members, had told city officials that they feared donations from OneOrlando would not get to victims if a traditional nonprofit was placed in charge. The organization founded a charity, the National Compassion Fund, in 2014, to ensure that donations made after tragedies go to victims. The group has raised about $5 million for Orlando's victims, Ms. Fernandez said, and will start to distribute the money in the next several weeks. Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who oversaw the federal government's victim compensation fund and has become the administrator for a number of such accounts, said Friday that he had consulted with officials in Orlando but had not taken a formal role. Mr. Feinberg said he believed that people who donate money after tragedies intend it to go directly to victims. "There is the understanding that it is a special fund for a special tragedy requiring a special effort," he said.


The presidential campaigns of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced late Sunday that they were coordinating their efforts in three upcoming primary states in an extraordinary attempt to prevent Republican front-runner Donald Trump from clinching the GOP nomination before this summer's convention. In a pair of simultaneously released statements, the campaigns announced that Kasich would pull out of Indiana to give Cruz "a clear path" ahead of that state's winner-take-all primary May 3, while the Cruz campaign will "clear the path" for Kasich in Oregon, which votes May 17, and New Mexico, which votes June 7. "Having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in November would be a sure disaster for Republicans," Cruz's campaign manager, Jeff Roe, said. "To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both campaigns would follow our lead." The arrangement marks a sharp reversal for Cruz's team, which aggressively opposed the idea of a coordinated anti-Trump effort as recently as late last week. Yet it underscores a bleak reality for the billionaire businessman's Republican foes: Time is running out to stop him. A statement from the Trump campaign called the move "a horrible act of desperation from two campaigns who have horribly failed." The Kasich campaign confirmed to Fox News that it had canceled two Indiana campaign events scheduled for Tuesday. As recently as three days ago Kasich's campaign announced investments in Indiana, including the opening of two offices and the creation of a campaign leadership team. Campaign manager John Weaver said in his statement that the Kasich team hoped to perform well in Oregon and New Mexico, which Weaver said were "structurally similar" to northeastern states where Kasich performed well earlier in the cycle. "Our goal is to have an open convention in Cleveland," Weaver added, "where we are confident a candidate capable of uniting the party and winning in November will emerge as the nominee." The announcement came less than 48 hours before voting begins across five Northeastern states where the New York billionaire is poised to add to his already overwhelming delegate lead. Trump campaigned Sunday in Maryland, which will vote on Tuesday along with Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Trump needs 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. If he falls short, the national Republican gathering in July will evolve into a rare contested convention. At a rally in Hagerstown, Md., Trump stressed repeatedly that he expects to win the 1,237 delegates needed in the first round of voting to stave off a contested convention. "I only care about the first. We're not going for the second and third and fourth and fifth," said Trump. Even before the plan was announced, Cruz had all but abandoned the Northeastern states in favor of Indiana, which holds its primary on May 3. Both Cruz and Kasich had cast the state as a critical turning point. "Keeping Trump from winning a plurality in Indiana is critical to keeping him under 1,237 bound delegates before Cleveland," Kasich's campaign said Sunday. "We are very comfortable with our delegate position in Indiana already, and given the current dynamics of the primary there, we will shift our campaign's resources west and give the Cruz campaign a clear path in Indiana." Indiana will award 57 delegates to the winner of its primary. Oregon and New Mexico have 28 and 24 proportionately awarded delegates at stake, respectively. Fox News' Dan Gallo and the Associated Press contributed to this report.


Two suicide bombers struck a police station in Damascus on Monday, with at least 10 people reported dead, in the first such attack to hit the Syrian capital since July. The interior minister said the blasts killed a number of policemen and civilians in the al-Midan neighborhood, but did not say how many. At least 10 people were killed and 20 more injured when four armed men assaulted the station, the pro-Damascus television channel al-Mayadeen reported. Russian news agency RIA put the toll at 15. Militants targeted the al-Midan police station and clashed with police officers there, Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar said on state television from the station. One man blew himself up at the main entrance and another detonated his explosive device on the first floor, he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Footage on state TV showed bodies in shrouds on the floor of the station and fire fighters putting out flames. The capital has enjoyed relative security as Syria s six-year civil war has raged on nearby and across the country. But several such attacks have hit Damascus in recent years, including a car bomb that killed 20 people in July. A bomb blast had also hit the same police station in al-Midan late last year. Islamic State and the Tahrir al-Sham alliance - led by fighters formerly linked to al-Qaeda - have each claimed separate suicide attacks that killed scores of people in Damascus in the past. Monday s attack came as a response to the major victories that our armed forces are achieving on Syrian land, the interior minister said. With the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, the government has pushed back rebels in western Syria, shoring up its rule over the main urban centres. In recent months, it has also marched eastwards against Islamic State. It s natural to expect that the terrorists will resort to acts like this ... but they are all desperate acts, Shaar said. Such operations are thwarted on a daily basis. Syrian troops and allied forces have captured several suburbs of Damascus from rebel factions over the past year. The army and its allies are currently fighting insurgents in the Jobar and Ain Tarma districts on the capital s eastern outskirts.


U.S. lawmakers should take action to ban China's state-owned firms from acquiring U.S. companies, a congressional panel charged with monitoring security and trade links between Washington and Beijing said on Wednesday. In its annual report to Congress, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said the Chinese Communist Party has used state-backed enterprises as the primary economic tool to advance and achieve its national security objectives. The report recommended Congress prohibit U.S. acquisitions by such entities by changing the mandate of CFIUS, the U.S. government body that conducts security reviews of proposed acquisitions by foreign firms. "The Commission recommends Congress amend the statute authorizing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to bar Chinese state-owned enterprises from acquiring or otherwise gaining effective control of U.S. companies," the report said. CFIUS, led by the U.S. Treasury and with representatives from eight other agencies, including the departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security, now has veto power over acquisitions from foreign private and state-controlled firms if it finds that a deal would threaten U.S. national security or critical infrastructure. If enacted, the panel's recommendation would essentially create a blanket ban on U.S. purchases by Chinese state-owned enterprises. The report "has again revealed the commission's stereotypes and prejudices," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in Beijing. "We ask that Chinese companies investing abroad abide by local laws and regulations, and we hope that relevant countries will create a level playing field," he told a daily news briefing. The panel's report is purely advisory, but could carry extra weight this year because they come as President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is formulating its trade and foreign policy agenda and vetting candidates for key economic and security positions. Congress also could be more receptive, after U.S. voter sentiment against job losses to China and Mexico helped Republicans retain control of both the House and the Senate in last week's election. Trump strongly criticized China throughout the U.S. election campaign, grabbing headlines with his pledges to slap 45 percent tariffs on imported Chinese goods and to label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office. "Chinese state owned enterprises are arms of the Chinese state," Dennis Shea, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told a news conference. "We don't want the U.S. government purchasing companies in the United States, why would we want the Chinese Communist government purchasing companies in the United States?" The recommendation to change laws governing CFIUS was one of 20 proposals the panel made to Congress. On the military side, it called for a government investigation into how far outsourcing to China has weakened the U.S. defense industry. The 16-year-old panel also said Congress should pass legislation that would require its pre-approval of any move by the U.S. Commerce Department to declare China a "market economy" and limit anti-dumping tariffs against the country. The United States and U.S. businesses attracted a record $64.5 billion worth of deals involving buyers from mainland China this year, more than any other country targeted by Chinese buyers, according to Thomson Reuters data. The push into the United States is part of a global overseas buying spree by Chinese companies that this year has seen a record $200 billion worth of deals, nearly double last year's tally. CFIUS has shown a higher degree of activism against Chinese buyers this year, catching some by surprise. Prominent deals that fell victim to CFIUS include Tsinghua Holdings' $3.8 billion investment in Western Digital (WDC.O). Overall, data do not demonstrate CFIUS has been a significant obstacle for Chinese investment in the United States. In 2014, the latest year for which data is available, China topped the list of foreign countries in CFIUS review with 24 deals reviewed out of more than 100 scrutinized by CFIUS. Although the number of Chinese transactions reviewed rose in absolute terms, it fell as a share of overall Chinese acquisitions, the report noted, and the vast majority of deals reviewed by CFIUS were cleared.


London Mayor Sadiq Khan said police had thwarted seven attacks by militants since March this year, describing the increase in the number as a shift rather than a spike. Speaking at the annual conference of his opposition Labour Party, Khan also said the police needed more spending to help them counter such attacks and that Internet companies must do more to crackdown on extremist content. Between March this year and now, there have been four attacks but seven have been thwarted, he told a Guardian Live event. Earlier this month, the head of the city s police force said six militant plots had been foiled over the last several months.


Who could forget the unbelievable standoff in Oregon between patriots and the government? Who could forget the dramatic shooting of patriot Savoy Finicum who traveled from Arizona to Oregon from to stand with American ranchers against the BLM, an overbearing government agency. Oregon State Police troopers fired the three rounds that killed the Arizona rancher and father of 11 during a confrontation on a remote road, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Bend.An independent investigation by Oregon authorities later found the troopers were justified in shooting Finicum because he failed to heed their commands and repeatedly reached for his weapon, Masher County District Attorney Dan Norris said.The not guilty verdict of the other members who were involved with Finicum who gave his life for the fight against our government, must be especially stinging for the large loving family this father of 11 left behind.As expected, liberals are freaking out over the verdicts, like this Black Lives Matter crybaby:I have a criminal record for protesting for #FreddieGray meanwhile #oregonstandoff terrorists didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Kwame Rose (@kwamerose) October 28, 2016Here are the verdicts. #oregonstandoff pic.twitter.com/fXW9GoxKUr Ryan Haas (@ryanjhaas) October 27, 2016Ammon and Ryan Bundy have been found not guilty of conspiracy. Their five co-defendants Jeff Banta, Shawna Cox, David Fry, Kenneth Medenbach and Neil Wampler have all been found not guilty as well. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on Ryan Bundy s theft of government property charge.The jury returned its verdict after some six weeks of testimony followed by less than six hours deliberations, and the last minute replacement of a juror after an allegation surfaced that he was biased.The jury was instructed to disregard their previous work and to re-consider the evidence. It was a pretty jaw-dropping verdict, said OPB reporter Amelia Templeton of the climate in the courtroom. The jury began by reading out the verdict for Ammon Bundy, ostensibly the leader of the occupation, and when we heard that Ammon Bundy was not guilty, it became clear very quickly that likely no one in the case was going to be found guilty, and indeed, everyone has been acquitted. After the verdict was read, Ammon Bundy s attorney Marcus Mumford was tackled to the ground by five U.S. Marshals. He insisted his client was free to go. Ammon Bundy faces a US Marshall hold and is supposed to be transferred to Nevada where he faces charges for the Bunkerville standoff. There s a hold for Ammon Bundy and Ryan Bundy out of the district of Nevada, said Matt Schindler attorney for Kenneth Medenbach. There s nothing Judge Brown can do about that. So acquitting him here, all it does is effectively release him to that hold, to be transported to Nevada. And the court that has anything authority to deal with that, is the court in Nevada. Marcus let the emotion of the moment, I think, overtake his better judgement. During the incident, Judge Brown ordered everyone out of the courthouse. Mumford was later detained.United States Attorney for the District of Oregon Billy J. Williams reacted to the decision on Thursday saying, While we had hoped for a different outcome, we respect the verdict of the jury and thank them for their dedicated service during this long and difficult trial. The charges stem from the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns in eastern Oregon s high desert. The armed protest began Jan. 2 and ended when the final four occupiers surrendered to the FBI on Feb. 11. For many weeks, hundreds of law enforcement officers federal, state, and local worked around-the-clock to resolve the armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge peacefully, said Greg Bretzing, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon. Although we are extremely disappointed in the verdict, we respect the court and the role of the jury in the American judicial system. Prosecutors initially charged Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy, and 24 others with conspiracy to prevent Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife employees from doing their jobs at the wildlife refuge in Harney County. Some defendants named in the indictment faced weapons charges for carrying firearms in a federal facility, as well as theft of government property.Only seven defendants went to trial in September. Others have pleaded guilty or are scheduled to go to trial in February 2017. Oregonian


What do Hillary s emails and police murders of unarmed black citizens have to do with each other? Powerful white men, i.e. the powerful, white men who currently run Congress, who are absolutely pissed and screaming in ugly indignation at the fact that the FBI didn t recommend indicting Hillary for her emails, and the Department of Justice listened.One tweet, posted by @OhNoSheTwitnt, explains the connection as these powerful white men misdirecting their anger towards a scandal that isn t even a scandal:Imagine if powerful white men were as vocally outraged about an innocent black person being shot as they are about improper use of email. OhNoSheTwitnt (@OhNoSheTwitnt) July 6, 2016How do you make this point better than that? If the GOP in Congress were half as angry about real injustice, and real problems, as they are about Hillary s emails, they might actually be able to get some real work done. If they were as angry about police shooting unarmed black men to death as they are about Hillary s emails, they might call for hearings and investigations into why that keeps happening, instead of investigating Hillary over and over, ad nauseam.Two men. Two days. Both black. Both unarmed. One in front of his child. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. And conservatives everywhere repeatedly question what these two along with hundreds of others are doing to provoke the police. They denigrate Black Lives Matter. President Obama s anger is correctly focused. But Republicans?Well, they re talking about opening an investigation into whether Hillary lied under oath now, because she must be a criminal in some way, shape or form. They just have to find it. Four years and millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted investigating Hillary for absolutely everything under the sun, but that s not enough for them.@OhNoSheTwitnt s point absolutely shreds the powerful, white men that run Congress, and run the GOP, in the most brilliant manner possible. Too bad the powerful white men who most need to think about this would rather focus their time, energy and taxpayer dollars on something that really doesn t fucking matter.Featured image by Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images and Twitter


Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr  After a trainwreck campaign, Trump supporters are struggling to find ways to motivate people to vote for their candidate. Trump has alienated nearly every voting bloc in the country, and routinely smears the sort of people who would otherwise be undecided voters. The question for his supporters is how to get people to set aside their hatred for the man and cast their vote for him anyway. For one horse breeder, the answer is semen.  In what has been described as "gross,""totally illegal," and the most Trumpian thing ever, a Texas Trumper posted on his Facebook page that he would be giving a 50 percent off coupon to all Trump voters good for either one breeding session with his stallions, or frozen semen for the horse owner on the go.  The post was flagged by Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall who noted that offering people compensation – even if it's half off horse semen – for a vote for Trump violates election law. This is totally illegal; also perhaps the most appropriately Trumpian vote buying scheme possible to devise https://t.co/7n0kDam7ZS pic.twitter.com/f11T5dEOmR  — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 8, 2016  After mockery and disbelief swept the internet, the post was deleted from Facebook. It's unclear if the post's creator, Beto Orsi, had a change of heart or merely wanted to avoid the jokes at his expense. From his public profile, it's clear that he still deeply believes in Donald Trump. And also horses. Here's his profile background.  This election can't end soon enough. Share this Article!


Turkey will suspend flights to the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniya starting on 1500 GMT on Friday, in response to a Kurdish independence referendum held earlier this week, the Turkish consulate in Erbil said in a statement. It also said work was going on to increase capacity of flights until Friday. The decision will impact Turkish Airlines (THYAO.IS), Pegasus (PGSUS.IS), and Atlas Global flights. Shares of Turkish Airlines fell 4.7 percent, while shares of low-cost rival Pegasus fell 2.9 percent immediately after the statement.


As soon as the news spread that there was some kind of a takeover of federal land combined with the name Bundy, ears across America perked up. However, this isn t Cliven Bundy himself but rather his son Ammon, who is just as stubborn and since everyone seems to have missed it extremely greedy.Greedy like his Daddy. In 2014, Cliven decided his cattle should get to graze for free and that the more than million dollars in fees he owed the US taxpayer was tyranny. Armed freaks from across the country showed up when BLM agents seized Bundy s cattle and pointed assault rifles at them until the cattle were returned and Bundy was left alone.The federal government allowed the cattle to be returned, but Bundy is far from out of the woods.Now son Ammon has started his very own revolution, breaking into a federal building located on a wildlife refuge in Oregon, a federally protected plot of land with the strictest of rules as far as fires, hunting, alcohol and stupidity go, four things the patriots who have moved in will certainly partake in.The episode started when a local rancher and his son were sentenced to federal prison for setting over 100 acres of public land on fire to cover up their poaching. After a protest of their incarceration, Bundy and company took the piece of forest and released a video recruiting more Murikans, promising them food and a place to stay. Just bring your guns.At the beginning of that video, Bundy lays out three goals for the area, highlighting the kind of person he actually is. Bundy clearly says he s going to protect the people and bring back the ranchers, miners and loggers:When you cast aside all of the I love my country BS and the we re here for the people garbage, you ll see that Bundy and pals targeted a wildlife management area because the things they think they re going to start doing there are strictly forbidden.Ranchers aren t welcome to graze their thousands of head of cattle, because the land has been designated as a natural resource. It s a place where a natural ecosystem can actually survive without being decimated by cattle. Bundy would, of course, change that and with his intention to be there for years if necessary, you know he s thinking setting up a cattle operation might be a good idea.Miners aren t allowed to strip or tunnel, because it s been determined that the risk to the environment of that area is too great from the pollution mining inherently brings to streams and groundwater. You d think the ranchers would care about the heavy metal poisoning of their cattle, but for some reason they don t.Loggers aren t allowed to chop down the forest in an area like this for obvious reasons. Things live in trees, and in this area, this tiny protected little world of plants, animals, streams and ponds, living things are essential.The Bundy stance is about greed. It s about the mentality that just because you ve lived in a place a long time you have the right to destroy it. For private property that may be true; you may destroy your own property at will, but that land next door owned by the taxpayer? We have laws and such about that land. It isn t yours. These people have been mooching for free for so long off of the U.S. government and therefore the taxpayer that they would have no idea how to live on their own.Yes, these are the same people who call people getting food benefits lazy.


For the last hour, the American gunship had been circling high above the city, carefully observing its target with vision sensors and waiting for clearance to strike. It was 2 in the morning on Oct. 3, 2015, and Kunduz City was enveloped in total darkness. The city's power had gone out five days before — soon after the Taliban took over the provincial capital, in a humiliating blow to the American and Afghan governments — and it stayed off through the bitter fighting that followed, as commandos from both nations counterattacked. The aircraft's target, a distinctively shaped building set on an expansive lawn, was lit by generators, a beacon in the out city. As they prepared to fire, the gunship's crew members radioed to the ground force commander, a United States Army Special Forces major, for more information. "Looking for confirmation on which building to strike — Confirm it is the large, shaped building . .. in the center of the compound. Affirm. " An circles its target like a ball swung from a string, raining down gunfire along the radius. At 2:08 a. m. the gunship began its assault, starting on the eastern end of the shaped building and working methodically west. For half an hour, the fired its millimeter howitzer, the largest airborne gun in existence, and its millimeter Bofors cannon, which shoots exploding incendiary rounds and is ideal for hunting people who flee targeted buildings by foot, often referred to by pilots as "squirters. " There were about 50 squirters at the site, the crew noted, a surprisingly high number. Through the infrared scope, the building glowed as it burned, while ghostly shapes that flitted from inside were gunned down. "We started a fire, good effects. " At roughly the same time, 150 miles south in Kabul, Guilhem Molinie, the head of the Afghan mission for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials, M. S. F. was woken by a phone call: His hospital in Kunduz was burning. A few minutes later, he received a chilling update: It was being bombed from the air. That could mean only an American or Afghan attack. He began frantically calling the United States military, the United Nations, anyone who might be able to make it stop. At 2:19 a. m. he spoke to an officer at the Army Special Forces headquarters at Bagram Air Base, who said he would investigate. The airstrike would continue for an additional 18 minutes. The officer later texted Molinie: "I'll do my best, praying for you all. " By the time the sun rose, the hospital's main building was a smoldering ruin. It had been leveled with devastating precision the other buildings on the compound, some no more than a few dozen feet away, were left unharmed. According to M. S. F. at least 42 people were killed in the attack and dozens injured. It was among the most shocking massacres in the led war in Afghanistan, and certainly the most baffling. Why would an American warplane destroy a working hospital full of doctors and patients? On April 29, seven months after the bombing, the United States military released a heavily redacted version of its investigation into the airstrike. The report asserts that it was an accident, a result of equipment failures and bad decisions on the part of the gunship crew and the Special Forces. "The investigation concluded that the personnel involved did not know they were striking a medical facility," Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of the military's Central Command, said at a news conference. "They were absolutely trying to do the right thing. " Even taken at face value, the report reveals more than a simple error. The circumstances that led to the destruction of the hospital are a direct result of how the Special Forces were made to bear the weight of the United States' contradictory strategy in Afghanistan, which seeks to both end its involvement in the war and prop up the struggling Afghan government. Restricted to a supposedly noncombat role as advisers, the Special Forces in Kunduz ended up calling in the airstrike, which was in support of Afghan troops against a target a away, as which meant that it bypassed many safeguards intended to prevent civilian casualties. Moreover, there is evidence — both buried in the report and from interviews conducted on the front lines in Kunduz — that suggests that Afghan troops may have deliberately provided the hospital as a target. Though the Special Forces later said they were unaware that it was the hospital, the redacted investigation documents show that they passed a description that matched the M. S. F. compound to the as a target — a fact that the military elides in its summary of the bombing. This description originated from their Afghan partners. In my conversations with them in November in the aftermath of the bombing, some of the Afghan forces in Kunduz, citing false intelligence that the hospital had been taken over by insurgents, said that it had been justifiably targeted. Both the American military and the Afghan government declined to comment on whether Afghan forces had intended to target the hospital. But a question hangs over the Kunduz bombing, even as the military has moved to declare the matter settled: Did Afghan forces, out of longstanding mistrust of M. S. F. draw the United States into a terrible tragedy? When Maj. Michael Hutchinson, known to his friends as Hutch, redeployed last year to Afghanistan, he was sure — as he later told military investigators — that getting outside the wire to engage in combat was mostly a thing of the past. The Americans were there to train, advise and assist the Afghans. It was their war now. The American combat mission in Afghanistan had ended in 2014, as announced by President Obama in a Rose Garden speech that year. The remaining American forces were supposed to be restricted to two narrow roles: A noncombat NATO training mission, called Resolute Support, was there to advise Afghan forces, while the American counterterrorism force under Freedom's Sentinel was charged with targeting Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. "The U. S. military will not be engaged in specific operations targeting members of the Taliban just because they're members of the Taliban," Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, told reporters in 2014. But as the Afghan government has begun to lose ground against the Taliban, United States forces have found themselves pulled back into combat. Since the new missions began in 2015, at least 87 American military personnel have been killed or wounded in action. Much of that fighting has fallen to Special Operations units like Hutchinson's company, which was assigned responsibility for northern Afghanistan under a task force led by the First Battalion, Third Special Forces Group. (Hutchinson's name is redacted in the military's report, but he is referred to throughout as "the G. F. C. ," for ground force commander. His identity was confirmed by Joe Kasper, Representative Duncan Hunter's chief of staff, who has been in contact with Special Forces who were in Kunduz. The military declined to comment on Hutchinson's role or make him available for an interview.) From the start, Hutchinson had been wary of Kunduz and its messy politics. "Ironically, I probably jinxed myself on this," he later told military investigators. "I said I did not believe that we should get involved in Kunduz any further than [training and advising] unless the provincial capital falls, because structurally it is such a political and ethnic problem. It's not something that we can effectively weigh in on. " Kunduz, a fertile wedge of rice and wheat fields tucked between the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and the Amu Darya river basin, is one of the provinces where the Taliban have made their biggest inroads in recent years. Yet in the months leading up to the fall of the city, neither the Americans nor the Afghans seemed particularly worried about its stability. On Aug. 13, Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, the United States military's spokesman in Afghanistan, was asked about the situation there during a news conference. "I think there's been a lot of generalization when it comes to reports on the north," he said. "Kunduz is — is not now and has not been in danger of being overrun by the Taliban. " Roughly six weeks later, around 3 in the morning on Sept. 28, Taliban fighters attacked the city's outskirts on three fronts. "The mujahedeen were united under one command," said a Taliban commander who took part in the offensive and goes by the name Shahid. He spoke by phone from outside the city in the weeks after the attack. "We broke our enemy. " Though Kunduz City was home to thousands of Afghan army, police and intelligence personnel, its defenses quickly collapsed, the officers fleeing in disarray to the airport on a plateau overlooking the city. Within hours of their initial assault, the Taliban were freely roaming the streets, looting the abandoned bases of weapons, secret documents, Ford pickup trucks, Humvees and even two old made tanks. Thousands of residents jammed the highways as they fled to neighboring cities meanwhile, hordes of Taliban fighters, some from surrounding provinces, streamed into the city, attracted by the prospect of a major victory. It was the first time since 2001 that the Taliban had captured a provincial capital. As panic spread across northern Afghanistan, the Special Forces were tapped to help save Afghanistan's largest city. There was already one group called an Operational Detachment Alpha — an "A team" of 12 Green Berets, plus some support troops, including joint terminal attack controllers, who direct airstrikes — based at the Kunduz airport. An additional Operational Detachment Alpha, plus four operators from a third one, were sent up from Bagram, the main American military base north of Kabul. They arrived around 6 in the morning on Sept. 29, a little more than 12 hours after the city fell. Hutchinson was put in command of the entire force. Afghan reinforcements were also flown in, including a contingent of police special forces and about 200 soldiers from the Afghan Army's most elite unit, the Special Operations Force, which was also known by its Pashto initials, K. K. A. and was formerly attached to the United States military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command. These coalition troops confronted a scene of total chaos: thousands of security forces and civilian officials clamoring for space on the few evacuation flights available, some casting aside their uniforms and weapons on the road. When the Taliban attacked the airport plateau that evening, the defenders began fleeing the perimeter, but the Special Forces called in airstrikes, which hammered the insurgent forces, breaking their offensive and leaving dozens of dead fighters scattered through the arid hills. "If the Americans hadn't intervened," said Col. Abdullah Gard, then the head of the Kunduz police's reaction force, "the airport would have fallen. " Earlier that same day, a Toyota Corolla pulled up to the main entrance of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz. "There was a big fat guy driving," said an M. S. F. employee who was on duty at the time. "Someone told me he's the big boss of the Taliban. " It was Janat Gul, one of the most powerful Taliban leaders in northern Afghanistan. With him was Abdul Salam, the "shadow governor" responsible for Kunduz. Salam and Gul got out and went inside, the employee recalled — unarmed as per the hospital's strict weapons policy — to meet with expatriate staff members. (Doctors Without Borders confirmed Salam's visit that day but said he didn't enter the hospital.) According to Molinie, who was monitoring events from Kabul, the Taliban leadership pledged full cooperation and protection and asked that the hospital stay operational during whatever fighting was to come. "The message was that we could continue our activities, that we would be safe and protected and that the patients of the hospital would be safe and protected," said Molinie, "as well as the patients from government forces. " The hospital staff activated the casualty plan and readied for the flood of patients that would soon arrive. For M. S. F. dealing with the Taliban was a routine part of the neutral role it seeks to maintain in Afghanistan. One of the world's largest medical charities, M. S. F. sees itself as an impartial humanitarian organization in the mold of the International Committee of the Red Cross, one that could cross front lines to provide treatment to anyone who needed it, including wounded combatants. That role has been getting harder to play. M. S. F. has been active in Afghanistan since 1980 and had worked with both the mujahedeen and Taliban governments. But after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, its ethos of political neutrality contrasted sharply with that of the Global War on Terror, where you were either with the United States and its allies or with the terrorists. Afghan forces have been especially resentful of the fact that as patients, insurgents in M. S. F. facilities are entitled to the protection of international law. In 2004, five M. S. F. staff members were shot in an unsolved murder. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, accusing the organization of serving American interests. But according to M. S. F. Afghan officials presented them with credible evidence that local forces were actually responsible. No action was taken against them by the government, and the organization pulled out of the country. When M. S. F. returned to Afghanistan in 2009, it followed the example of the Red Cross and negotiated its access in the field with the Taliban leadership. Eager for the help of humanitarian groups in responding to the worsening conflict, the United States and Afghan governments acquiesced. "The initial deal with the Afghan government, with NATO and the U. S.," Molinie said, "was that we would reopen a mission on the condition that all parties would accept that we talk to everybody. " But balancing the demands of belligerents in a ruthless war was fraught with risk. In its zeal to help Afghans trapped behind the Taliban's lines, M. S. F. risked souring its relationship with the Afghan government. One of its more ambitious plans called for opening a hospital in the held northern part of Helmand Province, along with an airstrip to fly in international staff members and medical supplies behind insurgent lines. "Personally, I thought the idea was completely insane," said a Western official who was briefed on the proposal last year. "The Afghan government would have reacted strongly against M. S. F. " In 2011, M. S. F. opened the hospital in Kunduz, a location it chose because it believed, presciently, that the province's bloody past presaged a violent future. But some members of the Afghan government and security forces there had little respect for M. S. F. 's neutrality and resented its treatment of wounded Taliban. When I visited Kunduz in November, their anger was still surprisingly raw, despite the recent destruction of the hospital. "They give them medicine they transport and treat their injured," Gard, the commander of the reaction force, told me. "Their existence is a big problem for us. " And though the hospital treated many more wounded for the government, there were rumors that M. S. F. had carried out unnecessary amputations on them, according to Fawzia Yaftali, a member of the provincial council. "The general perception was that M. S. F. supported the Taliban," she said. On July 1, an episode occurred that should have been, in retrospect, a warning sign for all involved. A team of Afghan police commandos from elite units mentored by United States and NATO special forces — the 222 and 333 Battalions, which were later part of the Afghan forces sent to Kunduz with the Green Berets — had arrived in Kunduz Province to track a value target, a militant commander named Abu Huzaifa. After targeting Huzaifa in an airstrike, the commandos believed that he had been wounded and taken to the M. S. F. hospital in Kunduz City. They drove there and forced their way inside, where they physically assaulted the staff members and fired their weapons into the air, according to M. S. F. Huzaifa was nowhere to be found. "It was a kind of wild intrusion," Molinie said. After M. S. F. phoned the governor and the police chief, the commandos were called off. Furious that the sanctity of the hospital had been violated, M. S. F. closed it to new admissions for five days, until officials received guarantees from Kabul that it would be respected. Huzaifa would be killed seven weeks later — by an American drone, according to a senior Afghan special forces commander — but bitterness about the hospital raid lingered among the Kunduz security forces. "They hid him," Gard told me, without offering any evidence. His men had accompanied the police commandos to the hospital. "The people who work there are traitors, all of them. " On Wednesday, Sept. 30, the day after the Taliban's assault on the airport was beaten back, Hutchinson started planning an operation to retake the city. The political pressure to do so was made apparent when, before his departure, Hutchinson, along with an Afghan general, spoke by videoconference with Gen. John Campbell, then the commander of American forces in Afghanistan. Campbell, who was in Kabul, was not happy with the Afghans. "General Campbell was understandably upset," Hutchinson told investigators. "Not only was it a shock and travesty that they had" — what follows is redacted in the military's report but seems to refer to how Afghan forces abandoned Kunduz City without a fight. The fall of Kunduz had called into question the viability of Obama's strategy in Afghanistan, and storm clouds were gathering in Washington, where Campbell had previously been scheduled to testify before Congress. "He was very much in a hurry to get back to D. C.," Hutchinson says in the report. "He had a lot on his plate. " (Campbell, who is now retired, declined to comment for this article.) After the video conference, Hutchinson briefed his men on what the general told him. This was a strategically vital mission, and the whole world was watching. "It had to happen as soon as possible. Failure was not an option on this operation. " The operation fit awkwardly under Resolute Support, the noncombat training mission, and Freedom's Sentinel, which was supposed to engage only ISIS and Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. Indeed, while Hutchinson had submitted his operation plan to his headquarters at Bagram under Resolute Support, it came back approved under Freedom's Sentinel. Later, Hutchinson told investigators that he thought he was operating under Resolute Support's rules of engagement. The distinction between the two — which were both led by Campbell — would become almost meaningless in Kunduz. The same unit could be carrying out a training mission one minute and a counterterrorism one the next. According to the military, in the first four days of fighting in Kunduz, 13 airstrikes were conducted under Resolute Support and nine under Freedom's Sentinel. Before conducting strikes, aircrews would sometimes radio to ask under which mission they were about to shoot. The plan Hutchinson submitted, called Kunduz Clearing Patrol, was a risky mission to strike deep into the city, where his men and the Afghan commandos would take over the police and governor's compound and set up a forward stronghold. Hutchinson later admitted that he had underestimated the number of Taliban in the city as "a small group of dedicated individuals. " The Green Berets planned to stay for only 24 hours, long enough for the local Afghan forces at the airport to rally and return to the city. "I really thought that the Afghans would see that it wasn't that big of a deal and they would all come back in," he said in the report. "We all agreed it had to happen fast, and the only people who were willing to go in, unfortunately, were people who did not know the city of Kunduz. " That same Wednesday night, around 10:30, according to the report, the Green Berets, accompanied by the Afghan police and army commandos, as well as Gard's reaction force, rolled out of the airfield in a convoy of armored vehicles and fought their way into the city. First they cleared Gard's compound, which the insurgents had captured the day before. They were hit by repeated Taliban ambushes and called in airstrikes from a circling gunship, killing dozens of insurgents. While entering the police compound, they set off a tripwire bomb, but no one was hurt. The Afghan and American commandos posted guards on the walls and set up a base inside. A Humvee with a single scale map of Kunduz spread over its hood served as the Special Forces' command post. The city around them was still swarming with insurgents. When the sun rose, the attacks began. Hoping to overrun the police compound's defenders, the Taliban launched relentless assaults from the surrounding buildings, sometimes getting close enough for the Green Berets to use grenades. As the insurgents rained rockets and gun fire on the compound's barriers, the Special Forces called in six "danger close" gun runs from the strikes near enough to risk friendly fire. Still, the insurgents kept coming. "I was in a lot of effective firefights," one of the Green Berets later wrote, "but this was on a completely different level than even any of the experienced special operators on any of the detachments had seen — particularly over such a sustained period of time. How no one was killed, or even wounded, is an absolute miracle. " An Afghan force of 500 was supposed to show up the next day from the airport to relieve them it never did. When a few Afghan police and army personnel did arrive, they said they would abandon their positions if the Americans left. It soon became apparent to Hutchinson and his men that their mission was going to last longer. By sending the Special Forces to hold an isolated position deep inside a city held by the Taliban, the American military allowed the Afghan government to claim a badly needed propaganda victory. On Oct. 1, as the Green Berets and the Afghan commandos fought for their lives at the police compound, President Ashraf Ghani held a news conference in Kabul to declare that all of Kunduz City had been retaken. "Thank God we had no fatalities," he said. (In fact, the battle to recapture the city would rage for two more weeks, and at least 38 Afghan police officers and soldiers would be killed.) The fact that the Special Forces were surrounded by Taliban also meant that the liberal use of American air power in Kunduz could be justified as defense. The military went further by applying what it called Persons With Designated Special Status to the Afghan commandos in Kunduz, a designation that allows American forces to consider temporarily defending certain partnered Afghan troops as part of their own defense — essentially, defense of someone else. Later, investigators would conclude that Hutchinson had improperly used these defense rules in order to launch offensive " assault fires. " It was his response, perhaps, to the conundrum he faced by engaging in combat during a supposedly noncombat mission: Was he supposed to wait for the commandos to get pinned down or take casualties before striking the insurgents they had been sent into the city to fight? "I can't expect them to assault that," he told investigators, referring to the K. K. A. 's subsequent attack on the held intelligence headquarters. "They can't sit out there and die on the road. " Armed with this authorization and ordered to take back the city of Kunduz, the Special Forces called in air support for the Afghan commandos, who, taking advantage of their superior vision capabilities, would set out from the police compound to raid Taliban positions around the city at night. "Where there was heavy pressure on us," said Yaftali, the K. K. A. commander, "wherever there was heavy fighting, we told the Americans to strike there. " In a city where all other institutions had been abandoned by their staff, the M. S. F. hospital was a lifeline for the people of Kunduz. Dr. Esmatullah Esmat had been a surgeon for eight years in Afghanistan, but he had never witnessed anything like this. "When I saw my patients after surgery and they would say, 'Dr. Esmat, you saved me,' I felt energy," he said. "We never felt tired. " A shouldered, stocky man with a shy smile, Esmat and his fellow surgeons worked in alternating shifts. Over five days, the hospital would receive 376 patients in its emergency room, more than a quarter of them women and children. Esmat had to amputate the leg of a girl. "I have a daughter the same age," he said. It was a bloody and chaotic scene. In the red room, the most critical cases were prepped — head and torso wounds, or traumatic amputations, typically — and then sent immediately into one of the hospital's three operating theaters. There, stripped naked under the surgeon's lamp, Taliban fighters, civilians and government soldiers alike became patients whose lives needed to be saved. Esmat and his colleagues performed 138 operations during those days, almost a third of them emergency laparotomies — the abdomen was cut open and internal organs were piled on the chest, so that the surgical team could go through them, painstaking inch by inch, looking for lacerations to suture. As the wards overflowed, the staff laid down mattresses between the beds and in the hallways and stretched the hospital to fit 130. There were gruesome and strange sights, like the Taliban fighter from a commando unit, in a distinctive pattern robe, weeping uncontrollably while stroking the head of his bagged friend. "It was a bit hopeless," said Faizullah Alokozai, the hospital's archivist. "I saw a lot of dead children. " Though the M. S. F. hospital was crowded with fighters, whether patients or caretakers (each patient was allowed one) staff members and civilians who were present said the insurgents respected the rules. They left their weapons outside or handed them over at the gun lockers at the entrance. One employee recalled seeing a fighter give up his weapon but forget his ammunition vest when the employee nervously approached the fighter about it, the man apologized profusely and handed it over. "We had respect for the hospital, as they were serving the people," said Shahid, the Taliban commander. "I myself went there once when one of our men was wounded, and before entering we submitted our weapons outside. " M. S. F. did allow caretakers and patients to keep their cellphones, however, and I was told by several staff members and civilians present that some Taliban caretakers also brought in radios. (Molinie said that while there was no specific rule against radios, he didn't believe that they were allowed in.) According to M. S. F. some of the Taliban patients were ranking leaders. Taliban vehicles were also allowed inside the hospital grounds to drop off critically injured patients. Unknown to M. S. F. Afghan forces in Kunduz were coming to the false conclusion that the hospital was being used as a Taliban stronghold and headquarters, which would have meant the loss of its protected status. "All their most important leaders were inside the hospital, especially Tajiks, Uzbeks and ranking Pakistanis," Gard said. He claimed his information came from local informants who had been inside the hospital and witnessed the Taliban operating there. "They had raised their flag and established their headquarters there. " These unconfirmed reports were lent additional weight by signals intelligence. Yaftali, the K. K. A. commander, told me that his unit's Wolfhound radio direction finders, which allowed them to determine the range and bearing of enemy radios, picked up Taliban transmissions from inside the hospital. "We located about 10 to 15 radios from there," he said. "The Taliban were inside and outside the hospital. " The Afghan forces I spoke to said they relayed these reports to the American military, and it's clear that, before the strike, some Americans were aware of the concerns that the M. S. F. hospital had been taken over by the Taliban. On Oct. 1, Carter Malkasian, a civilian adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, emailed M. S. F. in New York to ask about the safety of its staff and whether Taliban fighters were "holed up" inside the hospital. Maj. Gen. Mark Quantock, Campbell's intelli gence deputy, told investigators: "Although we assessed that there were Taliban using the hospital, you cannot shoot up a building under the current authorities. Period. " Molinie, M. S. F. 's head of mission in Kabul, said he was then unaware of the American military's suspicions, which he criticized as baseless. On Sept. 29, he provided Resolute Support with GPS coordinates for four of M. S. F. 's facilities in Kunduz, including the hospital, as a precaution. And the day before the bombing, he coordinated the delivery of three truckloads of medical supplies to Kunduz with an officer at the Special Forces' headquarters at Bagram. "He informed me of the number of beds, number of international aid workers in the hospital, and that the Taliban were 'protecting' the hospital and were treating the government casualties well," the officer later wrote. It's unclear from the report what, if anything, the Special Forces on the ground in Kunduz knew about the M. S. F. hospital. Several staff members at their headquarters at Bagram told investigators that they had passed M. S. F. 's grid coordinates on two separate occasions to the Green Berets at the police compound. "I know I read the four grids and got a for accuracy," one person wrote. "I think I used the term 'Doctors Without Borders,' not 'M. S. F. ''u2009" Hutchinson and other members of his team, however, said they never received the coordinates from Bagram and were unaware of the hospital's location before the strike, a contention the investigators accepted in their final report. But whether they heard the Afghans' false reports before or after the strike, some of the Green Berets in Kunduz appeared to believe them. "There were enemy in there," one later wrote, according to an email excerpt provided by Representative Hunter's office. "They were using it as a [command and control] node. They had already removed and ransomed the foreign doctors, and they had fired on partnered personnel from there. " For the civilians who remained in Kunduz during the fighting — the United Nations estimates that 13, 000 families were displaced by the fighting and that 848 civilians were killed or injured — life was a daily struggle to survive. There was no electricity, and the price of basics like bread and cooking oil had shot up, for those who could find them at all. Heading out in search of supplies meant risking your life in the crossfire on the streets. But for people like Ismail Zahir, a haired, spoken who worked in construction, there was no other choice. With his father deaf and disabled, his family relied on their eldest son as their breadwinner. When there were lulls in the fighting, Ismail would head out into the street, dodging sniper fire. "I was afraid," he said, "but not as afraid as I was for my family. " Once Afghan and American forces counterattacked and airstrikes began hitting the city, he grew especially worried for his sisters Morsal and Madina. Morsal, 15, was quiet and fastidious like him, while Madina, at 5 the youngest in the family, was impish and cheeked. At night, they screamed in fear when bombs struck nearby. They begged the family to leave Kunduz. Finally, on Oct. 2, the fourth day after the fall of Kunduz, Ismail and a friend set off across the city to find a car to hire, riding tandem on a borrowed bicycle through the deserted streets. Taliban fighters stopped them at a checkpoint but let them pass — civilians were free to flee if they wished. On the outskirts of the city, they found a taxi driver. He wanted the equivalent of $200 to take them to Kabul, five times as much as the normal rate, and they had no choice but to accept. Returning home with the driver, he and his friend packed their families into the Toyota station wagon, 14 people in total, most of them women and children. The driver set off south, toward Kabul. As they came around a corner, they spotted an Afghan Army armored vehicle. Perhaps thinking they were insurgents, it opened fire. As the driver wheeled around, bullets tore through the back of the car. Four of the boys were shot in the arms and legs, but the two girls, Morsal and Madina, were the most grievously wounded. Somehow, the car made it to the M. S. F. hospital. When Esmat arrived in the red room, he found Morsal laid out, pale and beautiful. She was dead from a head wound. Madina's abdomen was torn open, and her intestines protruded, but she was still conscious and cried out, "Mother, mother. " As Esmat looked around and saw Amin Bajawri, the room doctor, and the rest of the staff members weeping, he felt his own eyes sting and well. All the suffering he had witnessed over the previous days was overflowing inside of him. "My God, what is the sin of these people?" he cried. Madina's liver and kidney had been badly lacerated. To survive, she needed an immediate laparotomy. Esmat composed himself and began preparing for the operation. That night, according to the report, the K. K. A. commandos at the police compound planned a raid on the abandoned headquarters of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, which had been occupied by the Taliban. After dark, the insurgents' daily assault on the police compound had petered out, and the commandos planned to take three of their wounded comrades back to the airport, resupply and then drive back into the city toward the N. D. S. compound, on a northbound path that would take them past the M. S. F. hospital. The commandos asked Hutchinson to provide them with air support, and he replied that he would take care of them. The had already been on station above Kunduz for three hours when, around 1 in the morning, Hutchinson informed the gunship that the Afghan commandos were planning to raid the N. D. S. headquarters and requested that the gunship perform a "defensive scan" of the area. Hutchinson passed on the correct grid coordinates for the N. D. S. compound, which had been given to him by the Afghans but because the gunship was flying higher than normal to avoid air missiles, its navigation system pointed the sensor — a powerful vision telescope, essentially — at an empty field, located between the N. D. S. headquarters and the M. S. F. hospital. Confused, the sensor operator scanned around and noticed a large facility nearby with people walking around at night. He started observing it to determine if this was the target. In fact, it was the hospital. The gunship hadn't been given the building's coordinates before the mission, and although the hospital had a flag with the M. S. F. logo on its roof, it wasn't marked with a red cross or a crescent. The next step was crucial. Hutchinson, who had been conferring via an interpreter with the K. K. A. ground force and couldn't see the target himself, then gave the an "updated description of the compound of interest. " He later told investigators that the Afghans described "a long shaped building with a small offshoot. " He continued: "I can't remember the word I would have used for it. It's a in compound with multiple outbuildings, and there was a gate facing to the north with an arch. " That description didn't resemble the N. D. S. headquarters. It matched the hospital. At 2 in the morning, the hospital was quiet. Most of the roughly 300 staff members, patients and caretakers were asleep. In the operating theater, the night shift of surgeons was taking advantage of a quiet day to carry out up operations. Esmat, who spent two hours operating on Madina, had finished his shift at midnight and collapsed, exhausted, on a cot in the outpatient department. He had been worried that she might die on the operating table, but she pulled through. Down the hall, Faizullah Alokozai, the archivist, was sound asleep next to the hospital's deputy medical director, Dr. Abdul Satar Zaheer. Shortly after 2 in the morning, both men were woken by loud blasts and flashes of light. Realizing they were under attack, the two jumped up and ran east toward the entrance to the basement, into the ceilinged hallway outside the operating theater. They didn't know it, but they were running toward danger. The gunship had started by hitting the care unit on the east end of the hospital and was working its barrage west. Esmat, who stepped into the hallway behind them, saw the passage suddenly fill with smoke, and he jumped out a window onto the lawn, where he crawled and hid safely in a deep window well for the duration of the attack. As Faizullah and Satar reached the far side of the hallway, a shell punched through the roof and exploded on the floor in front of them. They fell to the ground. Satar's right arm had been blown off at the shoulder. Faizullah could feel his own hot blood gushing down his back. The power went out, and the darkness was rent with flashes of lights. Faizullah crawled up to Satar and held him. "I lost my right arm, please help me," his colleague cried. "I know," Faizullah replied. "I'll get you out, if we're alive. I'm not going to leave you. " As they cowered, reciting the Islamic profession of faith, more shrapnel struck them. Three times, Faizullah tried to stand them up, struggling with the bulky Satar, whose legs seemed to be paralyzed, before another explosion would send them sprawling. The sound of the blasts was the hardest thing to bear. By the time the gunship's fire moved on to another part of the hospital, the air had filled with acrid smoke, and Faizullah could hear the sound of flames licking the building. He got to his feet and pulled at Satar's arm. He was limp and silent. He's dead, Faizullah thought, and I'll die if I stay here. In the darkness, he heard a voice. "Please forgive me for whatever happened, because I'm going to die. Take care of my children. " Making his way forward, Faizullah saw that it was the young room doctor, Amin, sitting in a doorway, talking on his cellphone. His right leg was missing at the knee, and blood was spurting and pooling underneath him. "It's going to catch fire!" Amin shouted, seeing Faizullah. "We have to get out. " Amin heaved himself onto his remaining leg and hopped through the filled emergency room, and Faizullah followed him out, through the entrance into the covered driveway, where Amin clutched the row of pillars that lined it. "I can't move," he gasped, and so Faizullah slung him over his back and staggered out onto the front lawn of the hospital, where they collapsed in the grass. As they looked back at the hospital, another round of shells struck the driveway where they had just been standing, partly collapsing its roof. The hospital was on fire now, its flames leaping up and setting tall pine trees alight. The lawn was lit with its dancing orange flame. From inside, Faizullah could hear the screams of people burning alive. Sixteen service members have been disciplined for their role in the airstrike, but the military has declined to pursue criminal charges. The military has argued that while both the Special Forces and the crew made serious errors, and in doing so violated the Geneva Conventions, they were not guilty of crimes because they had not known they were targeting a hospital. "The label 'war crimes' is typically reserved for intentional acts — intentional targeting of civilians or intentionally targeting protected objects or locations," Gen. Joseph Votel said. Hutchinson was relieved of command and reprimanded, but he was recently assigned as his battalion's executive officer, according to Representative Hunter's office. It is true, as the report states, that there was a pileup of mistakes and technical problems, without any one of which the strike might have been averted. An antenna that would have allowed the gunship to send video of its target to the Special Forces, and to receive an email sent by its headquarters with the M. S. F. hospital's coordinates, stopped working shortly after takeoff. Later, the Special Forces headquarters at Bagram sent a Predator drone to observe the wrong N. D. S. location on the other side of the city, and as a result wasn't watching the strike when it started. Most important, because the strike was carried out under the special others designation given to the Afghan commandos, it didn't have to be approved by anyone besides Hutchinson and the aircraft commander. Hutchinson, who was inside the police compound, claimed that he thought he saw the K. K. A. convoy nearby and then heard them come under gun fire. In fact, the report states, the convoy was still five and a half miles away from the target and had not yet been attacked. The investigators concluded that Hutchinson violated the rules of engagement and stated that his "version of events surrounding his decision to authorize the strike is internally inconsistent, implausible and contradicted by other available sources of credible information. " But Hutchinson was arguably only doing what he was asked to do by his ups: fight with Afghan forces to retake the city of Kunduz as quickly as possible. "If someone must be held accountable, let it not be the man who was ordered to without being given a parachute," a Green Beret officer in Kunduz — his name is redacted — said, complaining of "moral cowardice" and an "abject failure of leadership. " As a result of the defense justification, an airstrike against a building — which would normally have gone all the way to General Campbell for approval — could be approved on the spot. These safeguards around airstrikes (which succeeded in reducing civilian casualties from airstrikes, to 204 in 2012 from 353 in 2011, according to United Nations figures) were intended not only to prevent simple errors or collateral damage but also to avoid acting on bad intelligence provided by Afghan sources, who had in the past been careless in passing on unverified rumor as fact, or even seeking to maliciously use American air power to target their rivals. This, in turn, raises the question of what targeting information was provided by the Afghan forces. The military has focused on the N. D. S. headquarters' coordinates, which the gunship's targeting system mistakenly indicated as an open field. But those grids were passed to the Special Forces at 6 p. m. when the Afghans informed them of their plan of attack for that night. When Hutchinson asked them, seven hours later, after the confusion with the gunship's targeting system, about the compound to strike, they gave a description of a "long shaped building" with a facing gate, which he in turn passed to the gunship. Maj. Gen. William Hickman, who led the military's investigation, described this as "an ambiguous physical description" that "appeared to match the M. S. F. trauma center. " But it's actually a rather specific description that corresponds to M. S. F. 's distinctive layout. It does not at all resemble the N. D. S. headquarters, which is a trapezoidal compound with a facing gate and two main rectangular buildings facing each other across a cramped courtyard. Indeed, according to the report, when the returned to a normal altitude, the sensor operator, worried that the navigation system had failed earlier, tried punching in the original grid coordinates, and this time it aimed his sensor at the N. D. S. headquarters. The crew members then did a " comparison" of the N. D. S. and M. S. F. sites using both of their sensors, but based on Hutchinson's description, they decided that they were 100 percent confident that the shaped building was their target. Hutchinson and the other Special Forces on the ground later told investigators that the Afghans had a second target that night, in addition to the N. D. S. headquarters. They all claimed not to know or recall what exactly it was. "There was actually two targets they said they were going to hit, but they didn't even have a location for the other one, so we didn't concern ourselves much with it," Hutchinson said. Another Green Beret said the Afghans had provided two sets of coordinates, one for the N. D. S. headquarters and the second for what was described as an insurgent control location, but he didn't know precisely what the other grid referred to. "I don't recall and don't want to speculate," said a third, who claimed to have passed both grids to the aircraft. A member of the gunship crew also said they received "multiple grids" that night. Could the second target have been the hospital? Did Afghan forces, influenced by their longstanding animosity for M. S. F. believe that it had become a Taliban headquarters and needed to be taken out? Unless their findings have been redacted, the military's investigators seemed not to have probed these questions. When I interviewed them in November, none of the Afghan forces would claim responsibility for passing on the description to the Special Forces. Yaftali, the K. K. A. commander, said that the decision to strike the hospital was made by the United States and that it was unfortunate but justified. "They were firing R. P. G.s at us from the direction of the hospital," he said. "The Americans were aware that they were firing from there," said Captain Munib, an Afghan commando who was partnered with American forces in Kunduz. The K. K. A. "had reported to them that the Taliban were there, and then they hit it. " (Independent investigations have revealed no evidence to suggest that armed Taliban fighters were inside the hospital or firing from nearby.) In fairness, much like their American partners, the Afghan special forces sent up from Kabul were reliant on information from local sources, who had longstanding views about M. S. F. 's role in Kunduz. "That hospital is in the service of the Taliban," Gard said when I visited him in Kunduz. "I swear to God, if they make it a hundred times, we'll destroy it a hundred times. " Is there still a place in today's wars for a hospital to treat all sides? On May 3, denouncing a pattern of attacks against medical facilities in conflict zones, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2286, which called for an end to impunity for those responsible. Oddly, some of the individuals seated around the Security Council's shaped table represented countries involved in these strikes. In Yemen, for example, the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and supported with American and British intelligence and weaponry has repeatedly struck medical facilities it bombed an M. S. F. clinic on Oct. 26, despite having been provided with its coordinates. In Syria, M. S. F. does not provide coordinates of the medical facilities it supports to the Assad regime or the Russian forces backing it, out of fear that the information will be used to target them. Aid and human rights groups have accused both governments of deliberately attacking medical facilities, including an M. S. F. supported hospital in northern Syria on Feb. 15, an accusation they have denied. "Can we provide treatment to whoever you consider to be your enemy?" said Jonathan Whittall, M. S. F. 's head of humanitarian analysis. "When you look at the track record of the last few months, when four out of the five permanent members of the Security Council have been involved in bombing M. S. F. facilities, it's a question that we urgently need to have answered. " In Afghanistan, health facilities remain under threat, both by the Taliban — who frequently commit war crimes like indiscriminately attacking civilians — and by the Afghan government. According to the United Nations, on Feb. 18, Afghan police commandos stormed into a clinic run by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and executed two patients and a teenage caretaker who were suspected of being insurgents. Jorgen Holmstrom, the S. C. A. 's country director, told me that the commandos belonged to the 333 Battalion — the same unit that raided the M. S. F. hospital last July and participated in the battle for Kunduz — and were accompanied by British troops. (A spokesman for Resolute Support stated that its investigation found "absolutely no evidence to support that allegation" of executions and declined to comment on which units were present.) In Kunduz, the hospital remains in ruins, and its staff has struggled to make sense of what happened. Faizullah, the archivist, survived, but his young friend Amin did not. "Whenever I went to sleep for two minutes, I was just seeing the bombing and the killing and the dead bodies," Faizullah said. Once the airstrike ended, Esmat tried to suture Amin's severed femoral artery on a makeshift operating table, but to no avail. Madina, the little girl, lived through Esmat's operation but not the bombing. Her family found her two days afterward and buried her with her big sister. "We tried to save her, but she died," Esmat said, picking his way through the rubble. "She died, and she burned. " The walls around us still stood, but the roof was open to the gray winter sky. Editor's note: The United States military initially declined to comment and referred questions to the Afghan government, which also declined to comment. After this article went to press, Peter Cook, the Pentagon's spokesman, said in a statement: "The comprehensive investigation that followed the Kunduz tragedy determined that all members of both the ground force and the aircrew were unaware that the aircraft was firing on a medical facility throughout the engagement. The investigation ultimately concluded that this tragic incident was caused by a combination of human errors, compounded by process and equipment failures. "