being reviewed but promising, everyone will have say. there is other data, as well, and make sure we have the whole story. the theory is we had a hospital fully operational, full of staff with patients up to 200 patients and staff. it was bombed. it s one of the hugest loss of life we experienced as an organization and one of the most clear-cut cuts we cases we can where laws are violated. reporter: doctors without bod borders say there was no taliban and it was so quiet, they carried out surgeries they had to postpone due to earlier violence in the city. barbara starr at the pentagon. thank you. now escalating tensions along the syrian border leading in the skies. turkey says it downed an unidentified drown invading air space after repeated warnings were ignored. did this drone belong to russia? a lot of folks are saying that.
insurgents there, multiple u.s. officials say hospitals are not targets to ever be hit. hospitals, schools and mosques are completely off the list not to be hit. this investigation may go on for some time. brianna. all right. barbara starr, thanks so much. i want to bring back our experts phil mudd and bob behr to talk about this. bob, you heard barbara s report there. it seemed as if there was some information about this being a hospital that certainly for days some u.s. authorities knew of. so what do you think? was this knowingly struck? well, i find it hard to believe that centcom would strike a hospital. yoernd i do know doctors without borders sent people to centcom and even in combat sent the coordinates to the hospital to the military in kabul. even the ac-130s which attack
the hospital have what s called a safe box. they should have the coordinates of all hospitals and targets that are off limits. why that system didn t work we have to wait to find out. but if that plane did attack and it knew it was a hospital, that s a war crime. so it s essentially geotagged as these airplanes are flying so that they can avoid these certain areas and they are knowingly off limits, right? yeah. there s even a name. i think it s called falcon view, but somebody may correct me on that. and that should have been preprogrammed into the plane s computers. and if it wasn t, that s just a tragic mistake. but again, if the hospital was hit on purpose, it s a violation of international law. do you think there needs to be a separate u.n. investigation? absolutely. i think we need to get the cockpit tapes. there s some rumors out there that that plane was targeting a pakistani intelligence officer leading the taliban. i don t know if that s true. but if you look at the ov
its way into the wrecked compound causing damage and potentially destroying evidence. another example for us of how this investigation is unfolding in a way that really necessitates an independent investigation. reporter: still, u.s. investigators still trying to answer the questions, how did it happen? who ordered the aircraft to fire? other key questions, did the knowledge it was a hospital get passed along? when an ac 130 gun ship struck, did the air crew and special of rak operations forces on the ground know it was a hospital? if they did, did they realize it was against military rules, even if taliban was there. the hospital was mistakenly struck. we would never intentionally target a protected medical facility. reporter: ash carter says all video and audio recordings are
on this story. they knew it was a hospital, is that right, barbara? at least somebody in the u.s. military, somebody in the u.s. government did have the information that it was a hospital. there had been rumors of taliban in the area, the question now how did all of this lead to such a disaster? cnn has learned that u.s. military investigators found the u.s. did know this was a hospital being run by the medical group doctors without borders in northern afghanistan. two u.s. officials tell cnn the location was in a u.s. military data base, one official saying the medical group did everything right. 22 people including 12 medical staff and three children killed in the u.s. attack october 3rd. doctors without borders says there has been more trouble. an armored vehicle carrying military investigators forced