U.S. military officials say detailed investigations show that U-S errors did result in friendly-fire incidents in Afghanistan but that the United States was not at fault in several incidents that harmed innocent civilians.
Top war commander General Tommy Franks released a report of the investigations Friday at a Pentagon briefing. The report makes public some of the findings into 10 cases of friendly-fire casualties and civilian casualties.
General Franks said the United States is still investigating a report that a friendly convoy of Afghan and U-S forces came under fire on March 2nd at the start of Operation Anaconda around the Shah-e-Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan.
He said the investigation will look at whether that friendly-fire incident was connected to the death of a U-S Special Forces soldier that occurred in roughly the same place at the same time.
The General said that at about the time of the reported attack on the convoy, an AC-130 gunship had reported engaging an enemy convoy in the same region. Because of that, he said, the investigation continues.
Another incident involved a raid on two suspected enemy compounds in January, in which U-S. troops killed 16 and captured 27 who later turned out not to be al-Qaida nor Taleban. The 27 were later released. The investigation concluded that there was no targeting error but that the intelligence was faulty.