NATO airstrike kills Afghan troops
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO pilots mistakenly attacked Afghan soldiers who had laid a trap for Taliban militants and killed at least five of them Wednesday, a devastating case of friendly fire in a conflict still troubled by miscommunication among allied forces, Afghan officials said.
The attack in the Andar district of Ghazni province, about 100 miles southwest of Kabul, suggested a serious lack of coordination between NATO troops giving orders to the aircraft and Afghan forces on the ground battling militants who hold sway in part of the district known as Rahim Khiel.
The Afghan soldiers "had made an ambush for the enemy" when they were attacked early Wednesday morning, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, the Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman. He said the "air force" had "bombarded" the Afghan soldiers; a NATO official later said a helicopter had fired a single rocket into the formation of Afghan troops.
"We condemn this incident," Gen. Azimi said. "Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened, but we hope this would be the last one."
According to the NATO official, the helicopter attacked the Afghan soldiers after a patrol of NATO troops spotted the Afghans and, mistaking them for militants, fed the information to the attack helicopter that fired the rocket.
While Gen. Azimi put the Afghan casualty toll at five dead soldiers and two wounded, the Ghazni province security chief, Abdul Ghani, said six soldiers were killed and one wounded. It also was unclear what time the attack happened. Gen. Azimi said he believed that it occurred about 4 a.m., but Mr. Ghani said he understood that the attack happened closer to midnight.
A NATO forces spokesman did not identify which country's aircraft attacked the Afghan troops but said the accident might have resulted from a "coordination issue."
Meanwhile on Wednesday in London, Britain announced that U.S. Marines would replace 1,000 British troops in the hotly contested Sangin region of Afghanistan's northern Helmand province, where the British have lost nearly 100 of their 312 soldiers who have died in the war.
British Defense Secretary Liam Fox, addressing Parliament, also announced a temporary deployment of an additional 300 reserve troops from a logistical unit now stationed in Cyprus to add to the force of nearly 10,000 British troops already deployed in Afghanistan, the second-largest contingent of foreign troops after the Americans.
Mr. Fox said the additional British troops will remain for several months to help with a force "reconfiguration," in which U.S. Marines will take responsibility for the northern and southern tiers of Helmand, while British forces concentrate in the central areas of the province around the city of Lashkar Gah.
Sangin, site of a major allied offensive last summer, was described by Mr. Fox as the "most dangerous" of all Helmand's battle zones. The transition there is part of a major push by the U.S.-led international force to regain the initiative in Helmand, a strategic battle zone in southwestern Afghanistan that has seen some of the worst violence in the war.
First Published July 8, 2010 12:00 am
