US and Kuwaiti investigating teams are being formed to ascertain how a US navy warplane dropped a 500 lb bomb, killing five US soldiers and a New Zealander in the Kuwaiti desert near Iraq's border.
Monday's accident during a training exercise was the latest to embarrass the US military, coming just a month after an American navy submarine sank a Japanese trawler, killing nine civilians aboard the fishing boat.
Military sources in Kuwait said the bombing accident occurred during a live fire exercise on Monday at 7.30 p.m. (4.30 p.m. Irish time) which involved mainly Kuwaiti and US troops.
Earlier in the day, British troops were involved in the exercise at the desert training range but they did not take part in live firing, Western military sources said.
A US investigation board was due in Kuwait this week to discover the cause of the accident in which the bomb fell on a group of military observers.
It was not immediately clear if the navy F/A 18 Hornet had missed the target or a ground team wrongly directed it.
Kuwait's Defence Minister, Sheikh Jaber al-Hamad alSabah, said yesterday that his country was forming its own investigation team.
Two Kuwaitis were injured in the accident along with five US soldiers who were taken to hospital.
The US military said one seriously wounded American arrived yesterday in Germany for treatment, with two others expected. Other injured in the accident were treated at the site and released, officials said.
"Such accidents do happen in training and you recall that during the Gulf War there was also friendly fire," Sheikh Jaber said.
The US embassy in Kuwait said in a statement that in Monday's incident the warplane "dropped an explosive ordnance on or near an observation post at the Udairi Range" just south of the border with Kuwait's former occupier, Iraq.
It confirmed that five US military personnel and a New Zealander were killed in the accident.
The New Zealand government said it wanted an urgent explanation on how the accident happened, which also damaged military equipment, military sources said.
The range is a regular training site for Gulf War coalition forces based in Kuwait.
The US embassy statement said: "The F/A 18 aircraft was participating in a routine close air support training exercise involving joint coalition forces. This exercise involved both day and night training."
It added: "The exercises involve friendly ground and airborne forces pointing out targets to friendly fighter aircraft orbiting overhead. The fighter aircraft then deliver weapons on the targets."
In Wellington, the New Zealand Defence Force said in a statement that Acting Maj John McNutt (27) was killed by the bomb. Maj McNutt had been a member of the elite First NZ Special Air Services Group for around 18 months.
The jet is based aboard the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, which is in the Gulf as part of Washington's large military presence in the oil-rich region to deter Iraq.
"We lost some servicemen today in a training accident in Kuwait," President George W. Bush said in Florida. He asked a crowd in Panama City for a moment of silence for the casualties.