KABUL — An Afghan presidential commission said Thursday that 30 civilians and 69 armed Taliban militants died in a German-ordered U.S. airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers earlier this month.The panel said in a statement released by President Hamid Karzai’s office that NATO erred in the Sept. 4 bombing of the tankers, as scores of fighters and civilians swarmed the trucks on a sand spit in the Kunduz River.The commission also blamed the Taliban for putting civilians at risk, calling it “an inhuman act.”The accidental killing of civilians by NATO forces has infuriated Afghans and has deepened skepticism in the West over the war — particularly in Germany, where the Kunduz airstrike has become a campaign issue in Sept. 27 elections. The U.S. and its NATO allies are currently considering whether to bolster their troop levels to combat the rapidly escalating insurgency.Initial estimates of the death toll by officials had ranged between around 50 and 90, amid uncertainty over how many were civilians. The toll of 30 dead civilians was first reported Sunday by Germany’s ARD television.U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has made reducing civilian casualties in military operations a top priority.The German commander of NATO forces in northern Kunduz province ordered the bombing because he thought there were no civilians nearby and feared the hijacked trucks would be used to carry out suicide bombings.Karzai told reporters at the palace yesterday that while the decision to launch an air strike was wrong, Germany remained a “great friend” of Afghanistan and determined to protect its people.“Germany has been a long, great friend of Afghanistan for almost a century now, and Germany has no intention at all of hurting anybody,” he said. But he added that “the operation was wrong, it should not have been conducted, it could have been done through other means.”The four-member Afghan government commission, which included the country’s top police and intelligence officials, also reported that nine civilians and 11 Taliban were wounded in the attack, and that a foreign militant with al-Qaida was also killed.The panel said the hijackers were led by two Taliban commanders, Mullah Nahim and Mullah Abdul Rahman. When the vehicles became stuck while trying to cross the river, the Taliban escorting them began to distribute the fuel to other Taliban in the area as well as their relatives, the report said.A U.S. warplane struck at about 2:30 a.m. Sept. 4 as villagers filled containers with fuel.