Nato mistakenly killed five of its Afghan Army allies in an airstrike on Wednesday while the Afghans were attacking insurgents in the country’s east, officials said.
An Afghan defence official condemned the latest “friendly fire’’ deaths, which came at a time when international troops are trying to improve coordination with Afghan security forces in hopes of handing over more security to them nearly nine years into the war. Three American soldiers were also reported killed on Wednesday in a roadside bomb in the south.
The Afghan soldiers were launching an ambush before dawn against insurgents reportedly on the move in Ghazni province when Nato aircraft began firing on them without warning, Afghan defence ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi said. Five Afghan soldiers died and two more were wounded in the airstrike in Ghazni’s Andar district, he said.
“This is not the first time such an incident has happened, but we wish that at least this would be the last one,’’ Gen. Azimi said.
Nato spokesman Josef Blotz confirmed the botched airstrike. He said he regretted the Afghan National Army deaths, telling a news briefing that a joint investigation has been launched. “The reason for this is perhaps a coordination issue,’’ Mr Blotz said.
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Restoration of judges illegal: NAB
AGE CORRESPONDENT
Islamabad
July 7: A new judiciary-executive row is in the offing in Pakistan as the National Accountability Bureau has declared the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and fellow judges as “unconstitutional”.
Justice Chaudhry and several other judges — sacked by military ruler Pervez Musharraf — were reinstated by PM Yousaf Raza Gilani through an executive order in March 2009. Analysts believe the new development could push the country into another crisis where the judiciary and the executive could take on each other. The supporters of President Asif Ali Zardari and the top judge are already at loggerheads.
The prosecutor-general of NAB Irfan Qadir in a letter addressed to the CJP called the restoration of the judges as illegal and called the attitude of the bench prejudiced complaining that the senior officials of NAB being insulted in the court.
In its reply addressed to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, NAB has also questioned the CJP’s restoration in March 2009 through an executive order of the PM by stating, “neither order is countenanced by the constitution nor the same has any other legitimate basis.”