BERLIN Pressure is growing on Chancellor Angela Merkel over a deadly air strike in Afghanistan in September that has already claimed the scalp of Germany's top general and the defence minister at the time.

Weekend media reports said that the German commander who called in the strike, Colonel Georg Klein, did so in order to “destroy” Taliban militants, not just two stolen fuel trucks he feared would be used to attack his troops.

Opposition politicians said that if this was the case, this breached the terms of the parliamentary mandate for Germany's 4,300 troops in Afghanistan.

They called on Merkel to make a statement in parliament to shed light on the incident.

“On September 4 at 0150 I decided to destroy with air power two fuel tankers stolen on September 3 as well as INS (insurgents) at the vehicles,” Spiegel magazine cited a two-page report by Klein as saying.

Another report, by the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), cited in German newspapers went further “He wanted to attack the people, not the vehicles.”

“It is difficult to determine why the focus of ... (Klein) was on the Taliban in the target area and not just on the stolen tankers, which posed the greater danger to the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) forces,” it said.

The strike killed more than 100 people, including between 60 and 80 insurgents, newspapers cited the classified ISAF report as saying.

“It is high time that the government makes a government statement this week. We want to know are the media reports right? Parliament is entitled to having the government clear this up,” said Sigmar Gabriel, head of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Wolfgang Neskovic from the far-left Die Linke party said “Targeted killing of Afghan Taliban is like a death sentence without a trial. It breaches our national constitution and international law.”

Media reports also turned up the heat on Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who last month forced the German military's top general, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and a senior defence ministry official to quit over the affair.

Franz Josef Jung, who had been defence minister at the time of the attack, also stepped down from his new post of labour minister following intense political pressure.

Guttenberg at first said the air strike was “military appropriate” and then changed his mind, he says, after receiving additional information.

He reiterated to the Bild am Sonntag on Sunday that the two men “took responsibility” because “relevant documents were withheld from me.”

But newspapers said that Guttenberg already had the ISAF report, which contained enough information for him to be able to determine that the air strike was questionable.

There are also conflicting accounts of his dealings with Schneiderhan and the official, Peter Wichert, suggesting that Guttenberg's account is not accurate, Spiegel said.

“If this is correct, then the chancellor should compel him to resign, like his predecessor,” Gabriel said.—AFP