U.S. Bomb Kills Three British Troops

LONDON, Aug. 24, 2007 — -- U.S. troops are, once again, coming under criticism for a deadly friendly fire incident. This latest incident killed three soldiers of Britain's Royal Anglian Regiment serving in Afghanistan.

The incident occurred when the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment called for air support during a confrontation with Taliban fighters near Kajaki in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. According to the British Ministry of Defence, as many as 60 of the 100-strong force were involved in the fighting when a U.S. F15 fighter jet dropped a bomb overhead, killing three British soldiers and injuring two others.

Few other details of the attack have been released and the number of Taliban casualties remains unknown. Lt. Col. Charlie Mayo, in Helmand Province, told BBC Radio 4: "There are a handful of different reasons why this tragic incident has happened and we are not in a position at the moment and I don't think we will be for some time to find out exactly what has happened."

The error could have been technical or could have been caused by inaccurate coordinates of their location given by the British Forward Air Controller on the ground.

But as the investigation is likely to take years, the Americans are guilty until proven innocent in many British eyes. A headline from an evening paper simply said "U.S. Kills Three of Our Troops." The news of yet more "blue-on-blue" deaths was met with a combination of disappointment and incredulity by the British public.

"I suppose you wonder how it happened, what went wrong," said 34-year-old Phil Root, of London.

It will also bring back unsettling memories of another U.S. bombing of British troops that occurred during the second Gulf War. Earlier this year Britons watched the death of one of their own online when The Sun newspaper published on its Web site cockpit footage from a 2003 targeting of U.S. planes on a British convoy in Basra.

The video showed two American pilots debating whether the convoy below was friend or foe and finally deciding to, "get him, get him."

Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull was killed in the attack. When they realized their mistake, one pilot said, "Dude, we're going to jail." They didn't and they didn't attend the coroner's hearing into Hull's death held in the United Kingdom.