U.S. military admits mistakenly killing Pakistani civilians in cross-border firefight

[maddezmom]

Source: CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. artillery and airstrikes inadvertently killed about nine civilians inside Pakistan on Saturday, a military spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said Tuesday.

The incident took place in the Bermel district of Paktika province when U.S. forces were engaged in a firefight with more than 50 suspected insurgents along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. There had been initial reports of potential civilian casualties but few details.

The United States believes the Pakistani civilians were killed when a hotel was struck on the Pakistani side of the border.

The spokesman said ISAF is certain that no U.S. ground forces crossed into Pakistan to chase the insurgents and that the building was accidentally hit. U.S. forces operating near the border inside Afghanistan came under fire and then returned fire with artillery, helicopter-borne rockets and fixed-wing aircraft. Its not immediately clear which weapon hit the hotel.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/26/tuesday/index.html?section=cnn_latest

[indepat]

1. When waging never-ending war, shit (collateral damage) happens

[greenissexy]

2. Any proof this wasn't done on purpose? (ntxt)

[saigon68]

3. That's OK they were Brown and Islamic anyway

</sarcasm>

I saw this behavior in another place about 40 years ago.

It was disgusting then---It's still disgusting

[OwnedByFerrets]

4. Whats the issue.....

they are just brown people......:puke:

[Nihil]

5. That'll go down well for Mushy baby ...

> U.S. forces operating near the border inside Afghanistan came under fire
> and then returned fire with artillery, helicopter-borne rockets and
> fixed-wing aircraft.

US troops came under fire and responded by calling in artillery, helicopter
and fixed-wing airstrikes on a hotel in Pakistan.

Whew. Glad I'm not Musharraf (sp?) trying to explain to his citizens about
being the best person for the job of taking care of their security and
their national interests! It's a good job that Pakistan isn't a volatile
place with nuclear weapons ... oh, wait ...

> Its not immediately clear which weapon hit the hotel.

Doubt anyone cares either.

Even if they did determine which weapon did the most damage (assuming for
a moment that only one prong of the remote attack caused the "collateral")
then there wouldn't even be an inquiry, much less any comeback on the
cowboys involved.

[entanglement]

6. kick -

[ShortnFiery]

7. No worries, Dear Leader referred to Pakistan as "a democracy" when interviewed ,,,

in Ireland. And we all know that we are "peachy keen safe" with the good people of STABLE Pakistan.

Oh wait?!?



Such horrific "collateral damage" is the PRIMARY reason why WAR (militaristic aggression) IS TERRORISM! :grr: :nuke:

[Zhade]

8. "Inadvertently". Yeah. Were they on speed, like what you gave to the pilots in Afghanistan?

Criminal.

[LynnTheDem]

9. "America Kills Innocent Civilians"

Funny, that's the headline type used when it's Russia (or insert demon of the day)but not when it's us.

Oh yeah, coz anything we do is good, us being the good guys and all.