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U.S. F-16 Pilot Mistakenly Kills 4 Canadians in Afghanistan
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| Henault discusses the bombing of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan
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OTTAWA,
April 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Four Canadian soldiers
were killed and eight others wounded in Afghanistan Thursday, April
18, when a U.S. jet mistakenly fired on them during a training
exercise. Ottawa said it was looking for answers on how the accident
took place, news agencies reported.
The
Canadian Defense Minister Art Eggleton said he was shocked by the
incident in which a U.S. F-16 warplane dropped a 500-pound
laser-guided bomb on the soldiers, inflicting Canada's first
casualties in a major combat operation since the 1950-53 Korean War.
"There
is no question of outrage on our behalf, it was an accident, but we
need to know what happened," he said.
"We
all want to have it done just as quickly as possible. Everybody wants
the answers. The government wants the answers, the families want the
answers. We want to know soon."
Eggleton
said Canada and the United States would be carrying out separate
probes into the attack, which also injured eight Canadian soldiers.
But it was too soon to say whether there would be a joint
investigation.
"It
was certainly a shock. We know the risk our people take when they're
on these missions. You don't expect it's going to be accidental,"
he said. The soldiers were part of a light infantry battalion based in
the western city of Edmonton.
In
Washington, a U.S. defense official said preliminary evidence
indicated the jet had attacked the Canadians because the pilot thought
he had come under fire from the ground, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
"It
is just a terrible tragedy," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke
said in Washington.
The
bombing occurred in a clearly defined training zone in southern
Afghanistan at about 2225 GMT Wednesday some 14 kilometers south of
Kandahar.
Speaking
at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, U.S. military spokesman Major Bryan
Hilferty told reporters that the pilots of the planes were very
experienced.
"We
do everything we can to mitigate the risk. We do risk assessment
before any mission, we try to make sure we have all sorts of
procedures, tactics and techniques in place to mitigate risk but
unfortunately, this is inherently dangerous," he said.
Canadian
Prime Minister Jean Chretien said in a statement that U.S. President
Bush had called him to offer his sincerest condolences. U.S. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Eggleton with a similar message.
The
Canadian troops were part of an 800-strong contingent serving in
Afghanistan under U.S. command as part of Washington's campaign
against terrorism. General Ray Henault, the Canadian armed forces'
chief of staff, said Canada remained committed to the Afghan mission
despite the accident.
Henault
said the F-16 would have been patrolling the skies above Afghanistan,
and not connected with the training exercise. "My understanding
is that there was no hostile activity in the area that would have
created this incident," Henault told a late night news
conference.
More
than 30 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan or in the region since
the United States began a military campaign on Oct. 7 that toppled the
ruling Taliban and routed the al Qaeda network in retaliation for the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Henault
said the injured Canadians would be evacuated to a U.S. medical
facility either in nearby Uzbekistan or at Ramstein in Germany. Two
who were slightly injured will remain in Kandahar, where the Canadian
troops are based.
The
bodies of the four who were killed will be transferred to Ramstein
Thursday en route to Canada.
Chretien said the casualties had been a terrible
blow.
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