US 'Friendly fire' kills UK soldiers

[DZJ 0]

From the BBC:

Quote

Three British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan by so-called friendly fire from American fighter planes, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

The MoD said the soldiers, from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, were killed at around 1830 local time (1500 BST) on Thursday.

It is understood they died when the planes dropped a bomb near their patrol in Helmand province.

Two other soldiers were also injured. Next of kin have been informed.

The fighter planes had been called in to give air support to ground troops, the Ministry of Defence said.

Human error

Defence Secretary Des Browne said he was "very saddened" by the death of "three brave men who were tragically killed in what is believed to be a friendly fire incident".

He said such incidents were "rare" and it would be thoroughly investigated.

"We will look at this incident very carefully and make sure the families, who are uppermost in our thoughts, know exactly what happened to their loved ones," he said.

He added that US air support was very important and had often helped get British troops out of dangerous situations.

"We go to extraordinary lengths to ensure these things don't happen but at the end of the day combat environments are very complex environments. Human error is always a possibility," he said.

The US Embassy in London said in a statement: "The United States expresses its deep condolences to the families and loved ones of the soldiers who died, and we wish those who were injured a speedy recovery."

...

Full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6962071.stm

Without apportioning blame, or speculating about the reasons for this tragedy, or losing sight of the fact that in war shit happens, I would nonetheless hope that in this case, US authorities will be more cooperative than they were in the case of the inquest into the death of L/Cpl Matty Hull.

See http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2655615#2655615

[Zep 0]

We posted at the same time so I'll delete mine

Gone fishing

[DZJ 0]

Yeah, I noticed - literally the same minute (listening to the 10 o'clock news?). I imagine the moderators would probably have merged/deleted the threads in due course anyway.

[Zep 0]

Quote: Wing Commander Andrew Brookes, a defence analyst, said such air cover must be relied on unless more troops were deployed on the ground.

"In this case it was an F15, an awesomely superb ground attack aeroplane but if you don't want that you have to provide enough troops on the ground... such as you don't need to call on the Americans to pull your chestnuts out of the fire," he said. End quote.

I thought we were allies,
This guy needs to keep his big mouth shut.

Gone fishing

[MrWong 0]

i wondered how long it would be before the yanks killed some more of our troops... took longer than i thought