Air raid lies force German minister to resign

The future of Germany's mission in Afghanistan was thrown into doubt today after a government minister resigned under growing pressure to admit his involvement in a campaign of misinformation over an air raid in which civilians were killed. Franz Josef Jung, defense minister at the time, quit as labor minister a day after the army's chief of staff, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, resigned over the incident with the deputy defense minister, Peter Wichert. Jung said his decision followed "detailed consideration" and that he accepted "political responsibility for the internal information policy" in his ministry. With an estimated two-thirds of the German public already against involvement, the defense ministry's admission that it effectively lied by initially denying there were civilian casualties when two petrol tankers were bombed in September has left Angela Merkel's recently re-elected center-right government in a state of uncertainty over how to proceed in the region.