A search for two US soldiers missing in northwest Afghanistan continued yesterday after 25 soldiers were wounded in what a Western official said may have been a friendly-fire incident during the hunt.
Local police said a party looking for the two missing soldiers clashed with the Taliban and that alliance aircraft were called in to provide support.
While the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) withheld official comment on how the 25 were wounded, police said the casualties occurred when the air strike mistakenly targeted international troops.
A Western military officer who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity said it appeared to be a “blue-on-blue incident,” or friendly fire, with “a huge number of casualties.”
NATO began its search operation in the barren, rugged area together with Afghan forces after the two paratroopers, from the 82nd Airborne Division, went missing on Wednesday during a routine supply mission.
Afghan police said the two had drowned.
As far as the injured were concerned, an ISAF statement said only that initial reports “indicate more than 25 ISAF and Afghan National Security Force members were wounded” during a joint operation in western Afghanistan.
“The wounded service members were initially treated on the scene and subsequently flown to an ISAF medical facility for further treatment,” it said.
It added that the force was searching for “two missing US Army soldiers.”
“We are committed to taking every measure possible to rescue or recover our missing service members. We continue to do everything we can to find them,” the statement quoted US Navy Captain Jane Campbell as saying.
Abdul Jabar Saleh, the deputy police chief of the northwestern province of Badghis, said the missing men had drowned while trying to recover airdropped packages and that their bodies had not yet been recovered. He said a number of NATO and Afghan personnel had died as they came up against Taliban militants during the search on Friday and that alliance aircraft carried out air strikes.
“In the afternoon... during the search operation launched to find the two drowned American soldiers, a clash took place with Taliban. Then aircraft mistakenly bombed the Afghan and NATO defense lines,” he said.
Seven members of the Afghan security forces were also killed, the defense ministry said on Saturday.
“Due to a NATO forces air strike on November 6 in Badghis Province seven Afghan security personnel [both Afghan army and national police] were martyred and also some were wounded,” the ministry said.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
RSS