AFGHANISTAN: US bombs were accidentally dropped on a wedding party in southern Afghanistan on Sunday night, killing around 40 people, local officials told AFP, as other reports put the death toll at as high as 120.
"According to our reports 40 people have been killed and another 60 to 70 people wounded," an official in Uruzgan province told AFP by satellite phone.
The bomb attack apparently accidentally targeted wedding celebrations in the village of Kakarak in the Dehrawad district of the central province of Uruzgan.
"It happened around midnight. It was a wedding party in which some people were firing in jubilation and the Americans misunderstood and bombarded the place," the official said, requesting anonymity.
The Pentagon said a US bomb had gone astray during an air attack that was mounted after a coalition reconnaissance patrol came under fire in Uruzgan.
Mr Yar Mohammad, brother of Uruzgan provincial governor Mr Raz Mohammad, also put the death toll at 40, and said 120 were wounded.
"Forty people, minors and adults, among them only 10 men, were killed," he said. "Another 120 people including men and women were wounded," he said, adding that some houses were also damaged.
Mr Mohammad said it was possible the American planes mistook celebratory gunshots at the wedding as enemy fire.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), citing "informed sources", said more than 100 people were killed in the raid. Other sources told the Pakistan-based news agency the number of dead and wounded could be more than 300.
An Afghan commander told a journalist in the Pakistani border town of Chaman that the bombing raid hit a convoy of guests travelling to the wedding.
"A wedding party was on its way to a village in Uruzgan . . . The lights of their cars and jeeps were on," said the commander, in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, 200 km south of Dehrawad. "US forces were given incorrect information that hostile people are moving from one place to another," he said, on condition of anonymity.
"The planes started bombing which caused heavy casualties." The commander said authorities in Dehrawad told him there were up to 150 dead and wounded, mostly women and children.
The Pentagon said US forces launched an air attack after a coalition air patrol in Uruzgan was attacked with anti-aircraft artillery fire. "That particular site was engaged with close air support. An undetermined number of bombs was dropped on it," Lieut Cdr Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said in Washington.
"At least one of those bombs was errant. We do not know where it fell," he said, adding that US forces were "aware" of reports of civilian casualties. "It is unclear at this point if those civilian casualties were the result of our errant bomb, or if they were the result of anti-aircraft artillery."
The chief US military spokesman in Afghanistan, Lieut Col Roger King, said an inquiry was under way and offered condolences for families of the dead.
"We understand there were some civilian casualties during the operation," he said in a press briefing broadcast on CNN from Bagram air base. - (AFP)