{"id":185269,"date":"2019-03-16T07:35:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T07:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=185269"},"modified":"2019-03-18T07:59:59","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T07:59:59","slug":"us-airstrike-wipes-out-allied-afghan-base-in-friendly-fire-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=185269","title":{"rendered":"US Airstrike Wipes Out Allied Afghan Base In ‘Friendly Fire’ Incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zero Hedge \u2013 March 15, 2019<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Coalition jets over Afghanistan. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

In the latest bizarre story to come out of the US “endless war” in Afghanistan, American warplanes obliterated an allied Afghan military post<\/strong> in an act of “self defense” on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The incident took place in the tribal Uruzgan province of south-central Afghanistan and reportedly began when a joint convoy of US troops and Afghan Special Forces came under fire by another unit of Afghan ground troops in what appears a major instance of accidental friendly fire<\/strong> resulting in a devastating two dozen total casualties <\/strong>on the Afghan side.<\/span><\/p>\n

The incident is under investigation, but US mission spokesman Bob Purtiman appeared to excuse US actions in a statement on Thursday<\/strong><\/span><\/a>: “We are operating in a complex environment where enemy fighters do not wear uniforms and use stolen military vehicles to attack government forces,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

American forces indicate they came under attack by an unknown entity. US planes flying overhead then destroyed the Afghan army post (described by the Pentagon as a “checkpoint”), which killed at least six soldiers<\/strong> and wounded nine others at the small base which housed a total of 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US side reported no deaths or injuries, though the Pentagon would likely not release such information until a full investigation is concluded.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US Department of Defense confirmed the incident on Wednesday, which it described as a mistaken “example of the fog of war”<\/strong>. Pentagon Spokesperson Sgt. First Class Debra Richardson told The New York Times<\/em>: \u201cThe U.S. conducted a precision self-defense airstrike on people who were firing at a partnered U.S.-Afghan force.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ironically US officials described the aerial bombing of the allied Afghan post as a “precision airstrike,” per the AP<\/strong><\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

The soldiers were killed by friendly fire Wednesday in what was supposed to be a precision airstrike<\/strong> by U.S. forces supporting Afghan soldiers battling insurgents near the city of Tarin Kot in Uruzgan province.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the second major incident to cause Afghan casualties following a prior fight with Taliban: “For the second time in a few days, an Afghan Army base was destroyed on Wednesday \u2014 but this time by American airstrikes that followed a firefight between the Afghans and Americans, Afghan officials said,” the NYT report noted<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year the Pentagon acknowledged<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that war in Afghanistan is costing American taxpayers $45 billion per year<\/strong>, with a number of public studies putting the total figure at over $1 trillion since the US war began nearly two decades go.<\/span><\/p>\n

The “endless war” has become more expensive, in current dollars, than the Marshall Plan<\/strong>, which was the reconstruction effort to rebuild Europe after World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small Afghan base wiped out by U.S. airstrike leaving at least 17 Afghan troops killed or wounded in the latest ‘friendly fire’ incident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Afghanistan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185272,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185269\/revisions\/185272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}