Four Canadian Soldiers Dead in U.S. Bombing Accident
By KEN GUGGENHEIM
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (April 18) - An American F-16 fighter mistakenly dropped at least one laser-guided bomb on Canadian soldiers participating in a nighttime live-fire training exercise in Afghanistan. Four soldiers were killed and eight injured, Canadian officials said.
It appeared the pilot didn't know he was flying over an area restricted for training - and so fire from the training exercise made him believe he was under attack, officials at the Pentagon said.
U.S. and Canadian officials said they don't know what went wrong in the attack that occurred at 1:55 a.m. local time Thursday (5:25 p.m. EDT Wednesday) near Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold. The two countries planned a joint investigation.
''As to the circumstances of what appears to have been a terrible accident, clearly there are many questions that the families, and all Canadians, expect to have answered,'' Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said in a statement.
Chretien said President Bush had called to offer his condolences. The White House did not issue a formal statement on the incident Wednesday evening, beyond noting that Bush had telephoned his Canadian counterpart.
Canadian defense officials said their soldiers were on a training exercise about 10 miles south of their Kandahar base. A U.S. Air National Guard F-16 dropped one or two 500-pound, laser-guided bombs, U.S. and Canadian military officials said.
Canada's defense chief, Lt. Gen. Ray Henault, told reporters in Ottawa that the U.S. fighter jet was not involved in the training exercise. Henault said the area was recognized as a training area and the aircraft were using very strictly controlled routes.
''How this can happen is a mystery to us. Without a doubt, there was a misidentification,'' Henault said.
Officials said the site of the accident was a former al-Qaida training camp now used daily by coalition forces for live-fire exercises
Canadian defense officials said two of the wounded soldiers had life-threatening injuries, one had very serious injuries and five suffered serious injuries.
Canadian forces are fighting alongside U.S. and European troops seeking to hunt down remnants of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization and holdouts from Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban militia.
At the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, Maj. Bryan Hilferty, a U.S. military spokesman, offered his condolences to the victims.
''We do everything we can to mitigate risk,'' he said. ''We try to make sure we have all sorts of procedures, tactics and techniques in place to mitigate risk. But unfortunately, it's an inherently dangerous business.''
At the Kandahar air base, where both U.S. and Canadian forces are posted, the American and Canadian flags flew at half staff Thursday morning.
The bombing is among the worst friendly fire accidents since the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan began in October.
On Dec. 5, a B-52 dropped a bomb on U.S. and Afghan forces near Kandahar, killing three Americans and at least seven Afghans, and slightly wounding Hamid Karzai, now Afghanistan's interim leader. The investigation isn't complete, but officials have said there were errors in transmitting target coordinates to the B-52.
On Dec. 22, U.S. aircraft struck a convoy near Khost, killing dozens of Afghans. Some Afghans say the convoy was carrying tribal leaders to Karzai's inauguration, but U.S. military commanders insist it was a legitimate target.
A training accident in the Kuwaiti desert on March 12, 2001, killed five American soldiers and one New Zealand officer; a Navy F/A-18 pilot was mistakenly given the signal to bomb an observation post. Three Americans were injured.
AP-NY-04-18-02 0728EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. |
