Asia

Home page

Asia

NATO helicopter rockets accidentally kill five Afghan soldiers

07 July 2010 17:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Rockets fired by a NATO helicopter mistakenly killed five Afghan soldiers who were pursuing insurgent fighters Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan and NATO officials said, APA reports quoting â€œThe Washington Postâ€.
The killings were the first incidence of NATO troops killing their Afghan allies since Gen. David H. Petraeus took command of the U.S.-led NATO military campaign Sunday. A military spokesman apologized to the families of the slain soldiers on Petraeus’s behalf.
The rocket attack unfolded about 4 a.m. in the Andar district of Ghazni province, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry. In addition to the five fatalities, two soldiers were wounded.
"The Ministry of Defense condemns this killing," Azimi said.
NATO spokesman Josef Blotz told a news conference in Kabul that the reason for the mistaken airstrike was "perhaps a coordination issue," according to the Associated Press. "We were obviously not absolutely clear whether there were Afghan national security forces in the area."
Military officials said a NATO assessment team in Ghazni was investigating the incident. Until the team’s work was finished, officials said, no more details would be available.
"We don’t know a lot of the circumstances behind this," said Col. Wayne Shanks, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul.
There have been other incidents of NATO airstrikes mistakenly killing Afghan soldiers, but they are rare. Much more attention has been focused on halting NATO airstrikes at targets that might include Afghan civilians.
Still, the possibility that NATO forces could inadvertently unleash deadly force on their Afghan counterparts complicates what has long been a central part of the U.S.-led mission: building up the Afghan forces and eventually handing over security duties to them.
Also Wednesday, military officials announced that insurgent violence had killed three NATO troops in a bombing in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. No additional information was immediately available.