Gen. John Campbell, the commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Monday that the U.S. accidentally struck a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz after Afghan forces requested air support to fight the Taliban.

“We have now learned that on October 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces,” Campbell said. “An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat, and several innocent civilians were accidentally struck.”

The strike killed 12 hospital staff members and 10 patients, including three children. Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit that provides medical services to victims of war, suggested in its official statement that even if it was an accident, the U.S airstrike on a hospital was a war crime.

Today the U.S. government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff,” the statement read. “Their description of the attack keeps changing — from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government.

The reality is the U.S. dropped those bombs. The U.S. hit a huge hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The U.S. military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition. There can be no justification for this horrible attack. With such constant discrepancies in the U.S. and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.

It is indeed a war crime to bomb hospitals, schools and religious buildings without warning the civilians inside first or using the least destructive methods possible. However, if those sites are harboring the enemy or being used in military attacks, the building loses its immunity. Both the military and Doctors Without Borders are waiting for investigators to determine whether or not the U.S. crossed a line.