Dutch government to pay compensation for killing 20 civilians in Afghanistan

The Dutch government has accepted to pay compensation for killing some 20 civilians in Afghanistan’s southern Urozgan province in an airstrike in 2007 after its defence ministry failed to prove that the residential complex its forces hit was a military target.

Back then, the Dutch was part of the US-led military intervention and was fighting against the Taliban in a battle for control of Chora Valley – some 500 kilometres southwest of the capital, Kabul.