| Subject: U.S. Aircraft Kill 4 U.S. Special Forces, 12 Kurdish Fighters |
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Date Posted: 17:55:27 04/06/03 Sun
U.S. Aircraft Kill 4 U.S. Special Forces, 12 Kurdish Fighters
6 April 2003
ARBIL, Iraq, April 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Four U.S. special forces troops and 12 Kurdish fighters were killed and dozens wounded near here Sunday, April 6, when U.S. aircraft mistakenly bombed a joint American-Kurdish convoy, Kurdish sources told AFP.
Hospital sources in Arbil said four Americans were among the dead, while Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) external relations official Hoshyar Zebari said 12 Kurdish peshmerga fighters were killed and 44 wounded.
Among the seriously wounded was Wajih Barzani, 33, the head of KDP special forces and brother of party leader Massoud Barzani.
Barzani was in intensive care, Zebari said, adding: "We are worried" about him.
"There was (Iraqi) firing and the American special forces asked for close air support, but unfortunately two aircraft bombed the joint forces," Zebari said.
The U.S. Central Command admitted in a statement released earlier Sunday that "coalition aircraft may have engaged special operations and friendly Kurdish ground forces approximately 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Mosul.
"Coalition aircraft were conducting close air support missions at the time (around 0915 GMT), and were in coordination with ground forces," the statement from the U.S. command at the Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia said.
"The circumstances contributing to the incident are under investigation and unknown at this time."
A BBC correspondent who witnessed the incident at Dibaga, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Arbil, said he counted 10 to 12 bodies after the air strike, some of them U.S. special forces personnel.
John Simpson, who also suffered minor injuries in the attack and said his translator was seriously hurt, said a bomb was dropped from a U.S. plane some four meters (yards) from where he was standing.
The convoy of eight or 10 cars was being escorted by U.S. special forces traveling in two trucks, he said.
"The Americans saw this convoy and they bombed it and they hit their own people. They've killed a lot of ordinary characters. I've counted 10 or 12 bodies around us, so there are Americans dead.
"This was a really bad own goal by the Americans. We don't know how many Americans are dead," Simpson said.
"This is just a scene from hell here, all the vehicles on fire. There's bodies burning around me, there's bodies lying around, there's bits of bodies on the ground," he added.
Prior to Sunday's incident, investigators from the U.S. Central Command's forward planning base had confirmed one U.S. death from friendly fire, which occurred earlier this month when a U.S. serviceman mistaken for an Iraqi soldier was shot dead by his own troops in central Iraq as he was investigating a destroyed Iraqi tank.
Central Command officials are also looking into reports of at least two other friendly fire encounters that may have killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded 42 others.
A Central Command statement said three U.S. servicemen were killed and five were hurt in a possible friendly fire clash involving an F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft and coalition ground forces.
It provided no further details and a link to the attack in northern Iraq was not apparent.
Also under investigation are reports of an encounter March 27 near the southern city of Nasiriyah in which 37 marines were wounded when two groups fired at each other during an Iraqi attack.
A naval pilot from the U.S. carrier Kitty Hawk was also feared to have been downed by a U.S. Patriot missile over southern Iraq.
Friendly fire has taken an equally heavy toll on British forces, who to date have lost five of their troops in such incidents.
Military analysts have warned that as war becomes increasingly more complex technologically, with troops possessing weapons of devastating power and lethality, there has been no corresponding decrease in the susceptibility of human beings to make mistakes.
"Because of the complexity of it (modern warfare), it becomes very, very tricky to get the balance right," British army Colonel Ronnie McCourt said here recently.
"No matter what structure you have in place, people get tired and accidents happen."
http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2003-04/06/article07.shtml
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