Five Afghan troops were killed in a early morning NATO air strike in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan recently. I am not certain but it seems that the strike was in support of a pre dawn ambush that the troops were conducting against Taliban fighters when the disaster occurred.
This is one example of the fratricide which can happen so easily in combat. Troops can easily become disoriented and confused during battle. You don’t always have time to radio every move that you make when you are either chasing bad guys or being chased by them. There will be an investigation into the incident but it sounds like a breakdown in command and control.
Now I don’t know so I am not telling you what happened but let the military ring man give you some speculation on the events. The Afghan troops were had probably moved from their reported positions to fight the ememy or for whatever other reason. In doing so either they failed to report their new location or somebody failed to pass it along.
When the pilot saw people running around the ground he probably saw that that they were in the area that he was briefed that the eneny was located in. So seeing people in this area he felt that he was free to fire them up. Now that’s just one scenario and I could be completely off base with it, but it is possible.
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