Afghans say NATO strike killed Afghan troops

[unhappycamper]

Afghans say NATO strike killed Afghan troops
By Deb Riechmann - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Nov 7, 2009 15:12:03 EST

KABUL — U.S. and Afghan authorities investigated Saturday whether a botched NATO airstrike was to blame for the death of Afghan soldiers and police during a search for two American paratroopers missing in a Taliban-infested area of the country’s west.

The probe into a possible friendly fire incident further aggravates already strained relations between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the international community, which holds his government partly responsible for rising instability.

After enduring a drumbeat of criticism from world leaders in recent days, the Afghan government struck back Saturday, saying it viewed a U.N. official’s prescription for ridding the country of corruption and warlords as an infringement on its national sovereignty.

The airstrike occurred Friday during heavy fighting in Badghis province, a remote area that borders Turkmenistan. Two days earlier, two American paratroopers disappeared there while trying to recover airdropped supplies that had fallen into a river. Fighting broke out between members of a search team and Taliban insurgents, the U.S. military said.

Eight Afghans — four soldiers, three policemen and an interpreter — were killed. Seventeen Afghan troops, including soldiers and police, five American soldiers and another Afghan interpreter were wounded, the U.S. said.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/ap_afghanistan_airstrike_110709/