Ministry: NATO Strike Kills Afghan Forces

Officials Say Base Housing Coalition Troops Mistakenly Attacked; Red Crescent Office Raided, Arrests Made

(CBS/AP)  Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said Saturday that a NATO airstrike in the western province of Badghis mistakenly hit a joint base housing coalition troops and Afghan security forces, killing four Afghan soldiers and three policemen.

NATO would not comment on whether an airstrike had taken place.

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said an Afghan army commando unit, district police members and foreign forces were in the base in the Bala Marghab district at the time of the airstrike Friday afternoon. Roauf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the western regional police commander, said the airstrike also wounded 15 Afghan soldiers and one policeman.

"During an air attack by NATO forces in Badghis province, seven Afghan forces were killed," a statement from the Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said NATO and Afghan authorities were investigating the incident and would issue a report soon.

On Friday, Abdul Jabar, Chief of Security for Badghis Province, told CBS News that he had received a report that a joint force of U.S. soldiers, Afghan Army and Afghan police had been mistakenly hit by a bomb dropped by a coalition aircraft. He said his report stated that 2 Afghan soldiers and 3 Afghan police officers were killed, and 12 Afghan soldiers and 1 Afghan police officer were.

He said 7 Americans were "hit," but did not have a more specifics.

No other confirmation of this report was available at that time.

Separately, the deputy governor of the southern province of Zabul, Ali Khail, said NATO forces raided an Afghan Red Crescent office in the city of Qalat early Saturday, killing a security guard and arresting three local Red Crescent employees.

NATO headquarters issued a statement saying coalition forces killed a militant and arrested "a few" suspected militants, including someone who was helping insurgents transport weapons and bomb-making materials to the area.

Red Crescent spokesman Walid Akbar confirmed that international forces had raided the office, but said he had not received any reports of deaths.

Akbar said his organization was negotiating with provincial authorities for the release of the three arrested men, whom he identified as a driver, a communications officer and a guest.

"We are a neutral organization. We help both parties. We help the victims of the war," he said.

According to the NATO statement, alliance forces and Afghan police had targeted a compound "which credible intelligence reported as a location known historically to be used by Taliban commanders."

(Left: A horsedrawn caisson carries the remains of Marine Capt. David S. Mitchell at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Friday, Nov. 6, 2009. Mitchell, 30, of Loveland, Ohio, died Oct. 26 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.)

It said the joint forces came under fire from inside the compound when the police chief in the operation called for those inside to come out. One man was killed when the forces returned fire, it said.

One of those arrested identified himself as a Taliban "facilitator," the statement said, adding that he was responsible for financial support and transporting bomb material and weapons into the area.

[decotoguy]

I love it,this type of stuff makes my point. lets call it friendly and that sort of sh%t happens.What the f&#k are you thinking?
Mush for Brains Americans think that type of war is OK,in 2009?
With all the equipment and communications instruments there is still Friendly fire and death?and you folks think it's OK?
Sacrifice your LIFE by Virtue of Suicide.Don't worry about the Taliban,
your own soldiers will kill you.
Now is the TIME for all good Knuckle-Head,Numb-Skulls to come to the AID of their country and DIE.

[dontknowitall]

Gee the Afghan people demonstrate and burn effigies when America is involved in similar accidents. But lo and behold it was a NATO incident and NO demonstration or finger pointing. WHATS WRONG WITH THAT PICTURE.

[brianbwb-2009]

Perfectly logical, that the locals would not protest the bombing, even if accidental, of a group that is helping invaders.

If a hostile foreign force invaded your neighborhood, would you protest if some of those helping the invaders were taken out by the
invader's own "friendly fire"?

[dontknowitall]

brianbwb..No I wouldn't ptotest. I would fight them to the death. Thats called Patriotism.

[babooph]

What a mess for US forces -the police & Afghan military may kill them -their own men may kill them-the Taliban may kill them -Al Queda may kill them.....no wonder it is taking so long to set up policy....

[brianbwb-2009]

Al Qaeda is CIA, and therefore also "friendly fire".

[kmwaugh]

WHAT nationality were those "NATO Forces"? If they were American, that fact would have been splattered all over the headlines around the world, but since it wasn't American, the news media hides the nationality of the group that messed up! WHO WERE THEY AND WHO MESSED UP? NO MORE OF THIS "NATO FORCES" BULL ****!!!

[wyodutch]

Well, we can be thankful that Major Hasan wasn't a pilot... he could have done a lot more damage there at Fort Hood.

[hungry1968-17]

by BryanW217b November 7, 2009 12:03 PM EST
thesevenveils, even if you were accurate, that does NOT give Obama the right to come in and QUADRUPLE Bush's deficit in only 10 months.
Bush took 8 years to build a deficit that Obama quadrupled in less than 1 year.
Perhaps in YOUR beady little head Bush's incompetence gave Obama the right to be 4 times as incompetent, but you will find thru polling that most Americans do not agree.







Part of the record deficit that Obama is being blamed for, is the second half of the TARP bailouts, ($350 BILLION), the automaker bailouts that Bush's regime engineered in December (somewhere between $75 billion and $125 billion), and the fact that the war spending is now being included in the regular federal budget instead of counting on "emergency funding" like Captain Disaster did over his 8 year reign of fiscal incompetence.

All of a sudden, "Obama's record deficit" can't actually be blamed on him, now can it?

[brianbwb-2009]

Yo Hungry, is it just me, or have I noticed several variations of my sig on these threads, being used to advocate Limbaughisms?

Am I now so notorious that I now have right-wing imitators?

I have noticed "brianwb," I seem to remember "Brianbw", a couple others, and now appears this "BryanW217b"

If so, I am flattered, maybe I should step it up a bit, maybe I'll get my own op-ed page, then I can get paid.

[hungry1968-17]

LOL!

No - it's not just you. There are several variants of your nic floating around.

I also noticed variations of "formusrmcsgt" and "nextgenman" too.


It's pretty sad really. If I KNEW that my debate was SO WEAK that I had to pretend to be someone with ACTUAL credibility, I probably wouldn't post at all out of sheer embarrassment.

[brianbwb-2009]

Thanks for the compliment, wow, today I get honored from both sides, even if one side doesn't intend it.

OK CBS, how about it?

We can call it "Cutting Through the BS", and I would present one topic every day, and I will go on the comments threads, something few of your regular contributors do, and debate with respondents.

In keeping with modern journalistic practice, (he said sarcastically) I will provide credible references to back up all my assertions.

I will also refrain from gratuitous eroticism, (unless that is the topic), and I promise to use a spell checker.

For this, we can discuss financial remuneration privately, you have my E-mail address.

[sean66x]

America should end Barack Obama's incompetence. Congress could accuse him of collusion with OPEC to raise fuel prices. The Obama recession is caused by his allegiance to a blood thirsty oil cartel. There is no reason to tolerate mass murder and poverty.

[thesevenveils]

The recession is the result of eight years with an idiot president and a war mongering egomanic vice president in office. What a short memory, a mjor sign of idiocy in itself.

[brianbwb-2009]

They could also have done so to Bush, who started this mess, for the same reason.

But there is one thing you, and all the other anti Obama people ignore, the reason you claim does not exist, and yet is obvious to anyone with a sense of reality.

The people pulling the strings behind this mess are more powerful than this, or the former president.

We could, and should get out of there today, except for the knowledge that whatever president gives that order will be assassinated.

$10 billion dollars per month for 8 years, think about the math, just one month's taking is enough to buy the entire Senate and House, making the legislators richer than all their individual petty corruptions combined.

It is also more than enough to have the families of anyone opposing them assassinated.

Given the choice of becoming richer than you can dream, or being dead, possibly after the rest of your family goes first, which choice would you make, hmmm?

This is the result of the neos' "small government" agenda. Now, just like the drug cartels in Mexico, the corrupt business cartels have more power than the government.

So if I were President Obama, after having read posts like yours, and others like "thesevenveils", "BryanW217b", and others, the question "should I sacrifice my life, and possibly the lives of my wife and children for the likes of these people?.." would be logically and blamelessly answered "Don't think so, son."

[askagain]

There would not be a need for foreign forces in Afghanistan if Afghanistan and Pakistan and middle eastern countries took care of terrorism themselves. Sadly, collateral damage and death by friendly fire happens. As long as this was a mistake, it is an unfortunate aspect of war.

[brianbwb-2009]

False logic, the so-called "terrorists" were not from Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or Iraq, and the planners are CIA asstes. That is public information, well documented.

This has nothing to do with "terrorism", and never has, this is Vietnam-style corruption, nothing more.

[fss2009]

There is no such thing as a smart warmonger. Stupid is as stupid does.

[mejordelahistoria]

I wonder what the backlash is going to be from the local muslim community on the christian community for this attack....... we cry about fort hood and yet the first thing we do is attack our own allies. Than when they kill a couple of us we will be wondering why this horror and injustice happened.

[brianbwb-2009]

To BryanW217b

The percentage of radical Muslims is the same as the percentage of radical Christians, and if you think Christians don't kill, or that the Christian religious text does not also contain adjurations to kill those who are not followers, then you are in serious need, not only of remedial history education, but seeing as how this whole mess started on the basis of lies by Bush' none of which btw had anything to do with any religious pogrom, of remedial reading, with emphasis on current events.

[brianbwb-2009]

To BryanW217b

Oh, and RTW, anyone calling for the genocide of almost a third of the planet's population for religious reasons is the one who actually needs to be stamped out. Hint, it ain't the Muslims.