Three U.S. Troops Killed by Stray Bomb

Dec. 5 -- Three U.S. special forces soldiers were killed and 19 others injured in southern Afghanistan today in an errant B-52 bombing raid, Pentagon officials said.

Five Afghan anti-Taliban fighters were also killed and around 20 Afghan troops were wounded in the accident when the U.S. B-52 dropped a 2,000-pound satellite-guided bomb, or JDAM, about 100 yards from friendly forces north of Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold.

Among the injured was Hamid Karzai, the ethnic Pashtun leader who was just nominated today as the head of Afghanistan's transitional government after a nine-day conference in Germany.

Sources say his injuries were slight, and he seemed eager to put the whole incident behind him. In a satellite phone interview with ABCNEWS, Karzai said: "There were some casualties. It was unfortunate, but things like that happen. And now everything is OK."

The killed Americans were identified as Master Sgt. Jefferson Donald Davis, 39, of Tennessee; Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Henry Petithory, 32, of Cheshire, Mass.; and Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of California. All three soldiers served in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, based in Fort Campbell, Ky.

Four of the injured Americans were in a critical condition, said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke.

Two of the injured U.S. soldiers are remaining in Afghanistan and will be returned to duty. The other 17 have been evacuated to other locations, with some of the most seriously wounded going to a hospital in the Persian Gulf nation of Oman. They may be later moved to Germany. Ten of the Afghan wounded are being treated on two U.S. Navy ships, the Bataan and the Pelileu, officials told ABCNEWS.

The bodies were being kept in a makeshift morgue at Camp Rhino, the U.S. Marine operating base southwest of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

The bomb apparently went astray at about 12:20 a.m. ET, when it was called in by the troops on the ground as they were under attack from Taliban artillery.

Sources say they suspect human error is to blame for the friendly fire. The wrong coordinates may have been radioed to the B-52 from the ground or wrong numbers may have been entered into the bomb's guidance system. There is also the possibility the guidance system itself simply failed, though the JDAMs have been among the most reliable weapons in the current campaign.