the 140 killed showed that 93 of those killed were children, while only 22 were adult males. A U.S. military investigation, on the other hand, estimated that 26 civilians were killed, but also admitted in its report that they would never be able to determine precisely how many civilians were killed by the operation. The U.S. military report concluded that at least two airstrikes on buildings should not have been ordered, and called for changes in the U.S. military's rules for using airstrikes as well as retraining. The report was also critical of the military for failing to assess battle damage quickly, and called for the creation of an investigative team that can respond within two hours of a reported incident. May 19, 2009 – In Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, Gurkhas mentoring police unit of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, called in British air strike after ambush from an suspected enemy position. A British Harrier II aircraft dropped a laser-guided bomb on the suspected enemy compound which turns out to be unarmed Afghan civilians. Eight Afghan civilians were killed as well as the compound being destroyed. September 4, 2009 – As many as 70-90 people, most of them civilians, were killed in northern Kunduz province by a U.S. airstrike called in by German ISAF troops after militants had hijacked two fuel tankers headed from Tajikistan to supply NATO forces. The hijacked tankers got stuck in the mud by Kunduz River near the village of Omar Khel. According to Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid, the insurgents opened valves to release fuel and lighten the loads, and villagers swarmed the trucks to collect the fuel despite warnings that they might be hit by an airstrike. According to some Afghan officials, the militants encouraged local people to take advantage of the situation. Word spread quickly and about 500 people from surrounding villages flocked to the trucks. At 2:30 A.M., a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet dropped two 500-pound bombs on the fuel tankers, triggering a huge fireball that incinerated many of the people nearby. Video footage filmed in the morning showed piles of charred bodies lying by the river. An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team member and others said it was impossible to know how many people had died, with many bodies possibly having been washed away by the river. According to Afghan police, provincial officials, and doctors, most