U.S. forces kill 7 Afghan police in friendly fire exchange:

[Praxius]

U.S. forces kill 7 Afghan police in friendly fire exchange

CTV.ca | U.S. troops mistakenly kill Afghan police

U.S. troops killed seven Afghan police officers in a friendly fire exchange that erupted when both sides mistook one another for a band of Taliban fighters, U.S. and Afghan officials said Tuesday. But it was still unclear which side opened fire first, as a U.S. military spokesman and Afghan police gave different accounts of the incident. According to Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, it was Afghan police officers who misidentified and then ambushed a combined U.S.-Afghan force. He said the force was in the process of swooping in on a suspected Taliban safe house early Tuesday in the eastern province of Nangarhar. "Afghan and coalition forces took incoming fire and they responded to it," Belcher said, adding the forces also called in helicopter support. U.S. choppers later fired rockets at the police officers, which caused most of the casualties, said the commander at the police post, who goes only by the name Esanullah. 'Tragic incident' Karim Rahimi, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, called the shootings a "tragic incident" and said police forces "were not aware of the coalition's operation." Rahimi said police at the checkpoint "thought that they were the enemy, so police opened fire on the coalition, and then the coalition thought that the enemies were firing on them, so they returned fire back." By the end, seven Afghan police officers were dead and four others wounded in the confusion. Khan Mohammad, one of the policemen who was manning the post, offered another version of the events. He said that a U.S. convoy backed by helicopters approached the checkpoint and then fired, apparently ignoring protests and calls for them to stop. "I thought they were Taliban, and we shouted at them to stop, but they came closer and they opened fire," Mohammad told the Associated Press. "I'm very angry. We are here to protect the Afghan government and help serve the Afghan government, but the Americans have come to kill us." Another conflicting report from the Khogyani district said Taliban militants were, in fact, involved in the attack at one point. However, the commander of the police post, as well as the spokesman for the governor at Nangarhar province, dismissed that account.

Here's a silly question..... are these police checkpoints marked and recorded? If so, then why would the US forces think there were Taliban at a Police Checkpoint? If they are not marked, then why arn't they?

Second.... we got two different sides to the story, yet again..... which one is the truth? Probably, we'll never know.

And thirdly, why the hell didn't they inform one another in the first place where they were stationed and their missions?

This stinks a lot like the air strike on Canadian troops a few years ago..... We were performing live fire training exercises in Afghanistan, and apparently US forces didn't have any information on this, figured we were Taliban, and dropped a couple of bombs on our troops.

I would be a bit unbiased towards this, if it was more common for the Afghan Army and police to attack colilition troops, but more and more reports I am seeing and posting here are pointing more and more towards either bad intelligence by US forces, or just reckless disregard. Either way, it's not good.

There have been more and more incidents where US related allies have attacked, bombed, air striked, or shot civilians, police, Afghan soldiers, etc.... There is a very bad trend here, and either someone is completely incompitent over there running things, or there is some sort of alterior motive going on, that I'm sure most of us are unaware of.

Reports from captured Taliban claim responsibility for IED's and other attacks, but all so far have refused to accept responsibility for any suicide bombings in cars, etc..... claiming that is a trait US specialists are using that they learned in Iraq to distabalize and further degrade the Taliban name (Which of course isn't hard to do)

I'm not saying the above is fact...... but it does raise questions when you throw all the incidences together....

What the hell is really going on?

And don't tell me it's all about numbers, and that US troops are more apt to being in these situations compared to other allied troops because they got more troops there then any others........ Every single mission I have heard that was led by US troops, all have had civilian/police/army casualties involved.... this isn't about numbers.... this is about tactics and intelligence.

By the same %'s and the amount Canadian troops who are in the front lines, technically we should have plenty of civilian casualties too...... but we don't..... we have far less then most other allies..... so what's with that?

Added:

And of course if you look at the above picture..... you can really see a resembalance of the Afgan Police uniform to what Taliban wear..... I'm sure they all wear square hats like those...... and yeah... it was a night mission..... but with night vision, you should still be able to determine outlines, details..... what the hell a checkpoint looks like..... cripes.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Praxius Here's a silly question..... are these police checkpoints marked and recorded? If so, then why would the US forces think there were Taliban at a Police Checkpoint? If they are not marked, then why arn't they? Second.... we got two different sides to the story, yet again..... which one is the truth? Probably, we'll never know. And thirdly, why the hell didn't they inform one another in the first place where they were stationed and their missions?

The checkpoints are temporary and set up at random, similar to our cops setting up drunk driver checkpoints. If they were long-term or marked, the word would quickly get out and the bad guys would simply avoid them.

We often don't inform the Afghan police about our ops because there are too many security leaks and our troops would get ambushed.

[Praxius]

Quote by: Zeebadee The checkpoints are temporary and set up at random, similar to our cops setting up drunk driver checkpoints. If they were long-term or marked, the word would quickly get out and the bad guys would simply avoid them. We often don't inform the Afghan police about our ops because there are too many security leaks and our troops would get ambushed.

Hmmmm...... point taken...... and now I understand the checkpoints a bit better..... however our troops and forces communicate hand in hand with the Afghan Army and Police and we inform them of pretty much all of our operations.... and we haven't had any reported security leaks..... and it helps avoid situations such as this.

Heck us civilians know what our troops are doing days before they do it.... it's announced on the news prior to the mission. They explain how many, what companies, vehicles, basically any and all information is provided and easy to get ahold of.... and our missions don't seem to be hindered by this at all.

The only forces we have that get no media information provided is JTF2.... although when one of them died a few months ago, we were still informed.... we're just not informed of their missions.

[Technosoul]

Undisclosed White House Sources say "oops".

It is sort of like when the Vice Presdent went duck hunting and shot the guy who went duck hunting with him.

Hope that helps.

[improvident]

as far fetched as it may seem.. i could see US troops.. atleast black ops or special forces using 'suicide' and car bombings to help win the war at home.. the American people are suckers for that kinda stuff... which ever side kills more innocents.. we dont like.. Is it possible our government.. and thus our military learned a thing or two from Vietnam?