[WASHINGTONPOST] A U.S. U.S. forces apparently mistook the police for the Talibs the U.S. and Afghan forces were fighting.
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...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province, where U.S. and Afghan forces have been locked in fierce fighting with the Taliban
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. Local media reports put the number of dead at 17. A U.S. military statement said that an investigation would be conducted "to determine the specific circumstances that led to this incident."
Helmand’s governor, Hayatullah Hayat, said that two commanders of the national police were among those killed and that many bodies were still under rubble, making an exact toll hard to determine.
According to Hayat, the Taliban had recently seized a number of police posts and captured Humvees stationed there, making it easier for aircraft to confuse the two groups.
"The police had recaptured a post from the enemy, and it was hit by mistake with the belief that the Taliban fighters were still dug in there after they took the post on Thursday," said Hayat, who was reached by phone. He claimed that 70 Taliban fighters had also been killed in the offensive, which took place around midday Friday.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because official details about the strike had yet to be released, said that U.S. Marines in Helmand had helped coordinate the strike with Afghan cops. The official said that the area had recently been taken over by the Taliban and that their Afghan counterparts indicated that the positions were not friendly or manned by government forces.