thedrifter
08-07-09, 06:41 AM
August 7, 2009
5 U.S. Servicemen Killed in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
KABUL, Afghanistan — Five American servicemen died Thursday, four of them in a single strike by a roadside bomb, making it one of the bloodiest single attacks against American service members in recent weeks.
Four Marines were killed in a vehicle near Herat in the western part of the country. Separately, a Navy corpsman, wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Farah Province on Wednesday, died from his wounds.
Taking a page from the war in Iraq, Afghan insurgents have been rapidly making homemade bombs their preferred weapon against the soldiers of the American-led coalition. There were 465 bomb attacks against coalition troops in May, more than twice the number from the same month the year before.
The deaths on Thursday brought to 11 the number of Americans killed so far in August, said Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo of the Navy, a military spokesman.
In July, 76 American and NATO soldiers were killed, according to icasualties.org.
Also on Thursday, a roadside bomb killed a number of civilians in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, many of them women and children traveling to a wedding, Afghan police officials said.
There were conflicting reports about the death toll. The provincial police chief said initially that 21 people had died, but Reuters quoted him later in the day as saying that an investigation of the attack, which occurred in a remote area, showed that only five had been killed and five wounded. Another report said 15 civilians were dead.
Officials in the neighboring province of Kandahar said that five civilians had been killed in an airstrike by an American Apache helicopter, as they were taking cucumbers to a bazaar. American and NATO officials disputed the account, saying the men were loading weapons.
Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi, the local police chief, said the airstrike occurred at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. Five farmers were killed when their van, loaded with cucumbers, was hit close to Sanzery bazaar in the Zhari district, he said.
Capt. Elizabeth Mathias of the Air Force, a spokeswoman for NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the helicopter crew observed four people loading small arms into a van.
When they drove away, the helicopter fired a rocket at the van and fired its machine guns, she said. “We heard the report by local officials and certainly we are investigating,” she said.
“According to my report, four individuals were seen loading weapons into a van — very clearly small arms,” Captain Mathias said. “It was a U.S. Apache helicopter that observed it, and they do typically record on video what they observed, especially when they are observing a target. We hope to have some image later and hopefully to clear it up.”
Yet another roadside bomb exploded next to a police vehicle on Thursday in another part of Helmand, the Nad Ali district, killing five police officers and wounding three others, according to an Interior Ministry statement.
Ellie
5 U.S. Servicemen Killed in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
KABUL, Afghanistan — Five American servicemen died Thursday, four of them in a single strike by a roadside bomb, making it one of the bloodiest single attacks against American service members in recent weeks.
Four Marines were killed in a vehicle near Herat in the western part of the country. Separately, a Navy corpsman, wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Farah Province on Wednesday, died from his wounds.
Taking a page from the war in Iraq, Afghan insurgents have been rapidly making homemade bombs their preferred weapon against the soldiers of the American-led coalition. There were 465 bomb attacks against coalition troops in May, more than twice the number from the same month the year before.
The deaths on Thursday brought to 11 the number of Americans killed so far in August, said Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo of the Navy, a military spokesman.
In July, 76 American and NATO soldiers were killed, according to icasualties.org.
Also on Thursday, a roadside bomb killed a number of civilians in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, many of them women and children traveling to a wedding, Afghan police officials said.
There were conflicting reports about the death toll. The provincial police chief said initially that 21 people had died, but Reuters quoted him later in the day as saying that an investigation of the attack, which occurred in a remote area, showed that only five had been killed and five wounded. Another report said 15 civilians were dead.
Officials in the neighboring province of Kandahar said that five civilians had been killed in an airstrike by an American Apache helicopter, as they were taking cucumbers to a bazaar. American and NATO officials disputed the account, saying the men were loading weapons.
Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi, the local police chief, said the airstrike occurred at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. Five farmers were killed when their van, loaded with cucumbers, was hit close to Sanzery bazaar in the Zhari district, he said.
Capt. Elizabeth Mathias of the Air Force, a spokeswoman for NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the helicopter crew observed four people loading small arms into a van.
When they drove away, the helicopter fired a rocket at the van and fired its machine guns, she said. “We heard the report by local officials and certainly we are investigating,” she said.
“According to my report, four individuals were seen loading weapons into a van — very clearly small arms,” Captain Mathias said. “It was a U.S. Apache helicopter that observed it, and they do typically record on video what they observed, especially when they are observing a target. We hope to have some image later and hopefully to clear it up.”
Yet another roadside bomb exploded next to a police vehicle on Thursday in another part of Helmand, the Nad Ali district, killing five police officers and wounding three others, according to an Interior Ministry statement.
Ellie