On Monday night, five U.S. Special Operations troops and at least one Afghan soldier were killed when a NATO coalition aircraft mistakenly bombed their position in Afghanistan's southern Zabul Province. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said only that "there is the possibility that fratricide may have been involved," but U.S. and Afghan officials confirmed Tuesday that the incident was a "friendly fire" error, The New York Times reports.
The Special Ops and Afghan troops were conducting security sweeps before Sunday's presidential runoff election when they were ambushed by Taliban fighters. The coalition forces called in airstrikes, leading to one of the worst friendly fire accidents among coalition forces in Afghanistan.
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