Five Afghan National Army soldiers were killed by a U.S. drone strike, and another eight left wounded, during an early Thursday morning friendly fire mishap.
“We believe the strike was the result of poor coordination between the people on the ground and the operators of the drone,” said Din Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the governor of Logar Province in eastern Afghanstan, The New York Times reported.
He went on: “The area is frequented by insurgents both foreign and local, and drone strikes are carried out quite often in that part of Charkh. The A.N.A. outpost was part of the security belt in the province.”
U.S. officials confirmed that the drone kills occurred.
“We can confirm that at least five Afghan National Army personnel were accidentally killed this morning during an operation in eastern Afghanistan,” said Maj. Cathleen Snow, a spokesperson for the American-led International Security Assistance Force, in The New York Times. “We value the strong relationship with our Afghan partners, and we will determine what actions will be taken to ensure incidents like this do not happen again.”
Gen. Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said in a Twitter post that several had been killed from an “ISAF airstrike.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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