WASHINGTON: Days before the October 3 United States air attack on a hospital in Afghanistan, American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on the facility ─ which they knew was a protected medical site ─ because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned.

It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital ─ killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff ─ were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity. The Pentagon initially said the attack was to protect US troops engaged in a firefight and has since said it was a mistake.

The special operations analysts had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled, along with indications that intelligence agencies were tracking the location of the alleged Pakistani operative and activity reports based on overhead surveillance, according to a former intelligence official familiar with the material. The intelligence suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control centre and may have housed heavy weapons.

After the attack ─ which came amidst a battle to retake the northern Afghan city of Kunduz from the Taliban ─ some US analysts assessed that the strike had been justified, the former officer says.

They concluded that the Pakistani, believed to have been working for the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), had been killed. No evidence has surfaced publicly to support those conclusions about the alleged operative's connections or his demise.

The former intelligence official was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity. The top US officer in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, has said the strike was a mistake, but he has not explained exactly how it happened or who granted final approval. 

The international humanitarian agency that ran the facility, Doctors without Borders, has condemned the bombing as a war crime. Doctors without Borders has acknowledged that it treated wounded Taliban fighters at the Kunduz hospital, but it insists no weapons were allowed in.

The intelligence analysts who were gathering information about suspected Taliban activity at the hospital were located in various bases around Afghanistan, and were exchanging information over classified military intelligence systems.