Lieutenant General Tim Keating (Getty Images)

Hit & Run: Military chief denies allegations of civilian casualties

Author: Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2017, 8:34PM

The chief of the New Zealand Defence Force has hit back at allegations that New Zealand soldiers killed civilians during a raid in Afghanistan.

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The claim is made in the book Hit & Run, written by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, which says SAS troops killed six innocent villagers and injured 15 others in Baghlan Province in 2010 during a revenge raid after the death of Timothy O'Donnell.

Lieutenant General Tim Keating, chief of the NZDF, said this evening that central premise of the book is incorrect, and that Hager and Stephenson confused the names and locations where the raid is said to have taken place.

Keating further argues New Zealand troops never operated in the two villages identified in the book as having been the scene of combat operations and civilian casualties.