US troops mistakenly kill seven Afghan policemen

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An Afghan soldier beside discarded weaponry in Kabul.

JALALABAD, Jun 12 (AFP): US-led soldiers and warplanes killed seven Afghan policemen in a midnight battle that erupted when both sides mistook each other for Taliban rebels, officials said Tuesday.
The foreign soldiers, who had been on an anti-Taliban operation, called in jets to assist them after coming under fire in the eastern province of Nangarhar around midnight Monday, they said.
Presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said the "heartbreaking incident" was a result of "a misunderstanding and lack of coordination."
The US-led coalition force said its troops had been trying to conduct an operation on a "suspected Taliban safe house" about 30 kilometres (18 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Jalalabad.
"En route to the location the forces were suddenly ambushed from both sides with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms and returned fire and called in air support and broke contact," spokesman Major Chris Belcher said.
"Following the engagement, the identity of the assailants was called into question," he said. He had no information on casualties.
Afghan police initially said they were attacked first.
"They attacked us from ground and air," said provincial police official Nasir Ahmad Safi, identifying the soldiers as Americans.
"They killed seven police brutally," he said, alleging the bodies of the dead each had around 20 bullet wounds. "Unless the criminals are prosecuted, we will not bury the bodies in a protest."
The interior ministry also said that "as the result of a misunderstanding, the coalition forces attacked a police post in Nangarhar province in which seven police were martyred and another five were wounded."
"It is not clear what the coalition forces were attacking, if they confused the police post with Taliban or what," spokesman Zemarai Bashary told the news agency in the capital Kabul.
Rahimi, the presidential spokesman, said later Afghan forces were not informed of the coalition operation.
"When the international forces went to the area, the Afghan national police thought it was the enemy and opened fire on them," he told a media briefing.
"Since it was not coordinated previously, they (the troops) also assumed they came under fire from enemy and they returned fire and the area was bombarded as well."
The foreign forces had approached the Afghan police post from two directions, Nangarhar provincial governor Gul Agha Shirzay said. "Police assumed it was the enemy. It was a misunderstanding."
The coalition said separately that a patrol of its soldiers and Afghan highway police had come under attack twice in the southern province of Kandahar Monday. Several enemy fighters were killed in the first battle.
About 30 attacked again about five hours later. The security forces called in close air support and more than two dozen enemy fighters were killed, a statement said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force announced meanwhile that one of its soldiers was killed and two wounded in an explosion in southern Afghanistan Monday.
Canada's defence ministry said the casualties were Canadians.
This takes to 81 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them in hostile action.
There are around 50,000 foreign troops working alongside the Afghan army and police to defeat an insurgency by the ultra- conservative Taliban that was removed from government in late 2001.