Avoidable miscommunication between US air and ground forces led to a “friendly fire” incident in Afghanistan that killed five US soldiers and one Afghan in June, a military investigation report said.
The incident was one of the deadliest friendly fire episodes of the war, which began 13 years ago next month.
The report released on Thursday by US Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan, cited a collective failure by soldiers, commanders and air crew members to execute the fundamentals of the mission. As a result, the five US nationals and one Afghan were mistaken for the enemy and were attacked with two laser-guided bombs from a B-1 bomber.
A two-star US Air Force general led the investigation. Many details of the report were blacked out before its public release.
The B-1 bomber crew was executing an authorized order, but the crew members were faulted by investigators for not taking reasonable precautions to ensure they knew where friendly forces were located. Despite discrepancies in reported US troop locations — suggesting that something may have been amiss — the air crew did not take necessary steps to validate its information before launching the bombs, the report said.
Unidentified members of the ground forces, which included a US Army Special Forces unit, were faulted for incorrectly communicating some troops’ positions and for not knowing that the B-1 bomber’s targeting gear is incapable of detecting friendly marking devices of the type used by US ground forces in the June 9 operation. These failures led to the mistaken conclusion that the targeted US and Afghan soldiers were insurgents.
“The key members executing the close air support mission collectively failed to effectively execute the fundamentals, which resulted in poor situational awareness and improper target identification,” the report concluded.
In response to the report, the army said it was considering whether any tactics should be changed to minimize chances of repeating mistakes that led to the deaths. It also forwarded the report to the commander of US Army Special Operations Command to decide whether any punitive action should be taken.
The air force said it would study the report before deciding on any disciplinary action.
The June incident happened in Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan at the end of an operation led by the Afghan army and supported by US Army Special Forces. Their aim was to disrupt insurgents and improve security for local polling stations in the Arghandab District in advance of the June 14 Afghan presidential runoff election.
From an altitude of about 3,650m, the B-1 bomber was providing what the military calls close air support while US and Afghan ground troops were moving out of the area at the conclusion of their operation.
The six soldiers who were killed had moved from their group’s main position in a valley to higher ground on a ridgeline in order to maneuver on insurgent forces. Muzzle flashes seen at their position on the ridgeline were mistaken for signs of rifle fire from insurgents, in part because the movement of the six was not properly communicated to those coordinating with the B-1 crew. And when the B-1 crew said their targeting pods had detected no US marking devices at that location it was decided that targets must by insurgents.
“While this complex combat situation presented a challenging set of circumstances, had the team understood their system’s capabilities, executed standard tactics, techniques and procedures and communicated effectively, this tragic incident was avoidable,” the partially censored report concluded.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the