WELLINGTON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand military and government covered up a botched raid by special forces that left six civilians dead and 15 wounded in Afghanistan in 2010, according to a book released Tuesday.
The book, "Hit and Run,' by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, detailed the response of New Zealand's Special Air Service (SAS) to the first New Zealander dying in combat in August 2010.
This included an SAS attack on two isolated villages in Afghanistan's Baghlan province where they mistakenly believed they would find the insurgents who had attacked a New Zealand patrol 19 days earlier in neighboring Bamiyan.
SAS officers commanded and led the attack, supported by U.S. and Afghan forces.
The insurgent group was not there, but at least 21 civilians were killed and injured many of them women and children and the SAS and U.S. forces burned and blew up about a dozen houses, said the book.
The SAS also failed to help the wounded, it claimed.
The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and government tried to keep the civilian casualties a secret and had repeatedly denied reports of innocents killed in the raids.
Read the full story at Xinhua