KABUL, Afghanistan — Five American troops were killed in a rare friendly-fire airstrike that hit a team of Afghan and U.S. troops conducting a security operation before Saturday’s presidential runoff election, U.S. and Afghan officials said Tuesday.
It marked the deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan since a helicopter crash in December in the same southern province, Zabul, killed six service members. U.S. military officials said they are investigating the Monday incident.
The team of Afghan and U.S. troops had been patrolling Arghandab district and was preparing to leave the area by helicopter when it came under attack from militants firing rockets and small arms, provincial police chief Ghulam Sakhi Roghlewanai said.
Seeking to beat back the assault, the U.S. troops called in an airstrike. Ammunition dropped from a B-1B bomber appears to have killed the Americans, according to an official briefed on the preliminary investigation who was not allowed to speak on the record. At least two of the casualties were Special Operations troops, the official said.
Officials said it was too early to conclude whether the incident was the result of aircraft malfunction, pilot error or miscommunication between troops on the ground and those flying the aircraft.
“Investigators are looking into the likelihood that friendly fire was the cause,” the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of these fallen.”
At a news conference Tuesday, Kirby did not provide details about those killed but confirmed five U.S. deaths. He said there are no reports of any U.S. troops wounded in action.
“We need to let investigators investigate,” he said.
Relatives identified two of the five:
• Aaron Toppen, 19, of Mokena, Ill., who had deployed to Afghanistan in March, a month after his father died, according to a family spokeswoman, Jennie Swartz.
• Justin Helton, 25, whose parents in Beaver, Ohio, were visted by military representatives, according to a cousin. Mindy Helton said her cousin specialized in dealing with explosives and was based out of Fort Bragg, N.C. He had been in Afghanistan for about two months and was engaged to be married.
Roghlewanai said one Afghan soldier was killed during the operation.
A small number of friendly-fire incidents in the war have occurred during firefights. Some involved airstrikes in which pilots mistook friendly forces for militants. Monday’s incident appeared to be among the deadliest involving U.S. troops, according to a review of past cases.
On Tuesday morning, the Taliban kidnapped 33 university professors on Afghanistan’s most important highway. The professors were on a bus headed north on Highway 1, which connects Kandahar to Kabul, when they got caught in a firefight between insurgents and Afghan security forces, according to Afghan officials and the professors’ colleagues at Kandahar University. At some point, the Taliban fighters abducted the busload of civilians.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
