WASHINGTON: The Pentagon admitted on Monday that a U.S. warplane erred in bombing its target in Afghanistan, leading to death of dozens of civilians."There were some problems with some tactics, techniques and procedures, the way in which close air support was supposed to have been executed in this case," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell of the air strikes on May 4 in the western Farah province.
Afghan officials blamed the strikes for killing about 140 civilian, but U.S. commanders believed that no more than 30 civilians were killed, along with 60 to 65 Taliban insurgents.
Morrell noted at the press conference that the number of slain Taliban militants "greatly outnumbered" that of civilians. But he admitted that there were some problems in the way to carry out the strikes.
As investigators noted, one of the problems "associated with how this all took place" was that a B-1 bomber involved in the incident lost contact with its intended target temporarily, Morrell said.
"That plane, because of how it takes its bombing routes, had to break away from positive identification of their target at one point to make its elongated approach," he added.
According to the U.S. military, the strikes at Farah province was conducted one day after some Taliban militants invaded two villages, where they demanded money from civilians and killed three former government employees.
At request of the provincial governor, the U.S. ground troops joined the Afghan forces in the battle, with help of a U.S. F-18 fighter and the B-1 bomber, it said.
However, some U.S. military officials earlier said that the warplane did not reconfirm the target before dropping the bomb, when civilians had possibly entered the area or Talibans had left in the interim.
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