Three British soldiers die in friendly fire
Reuters - Friday, August 24 03:35 pmKABUL (Reuters) - Three British soldiers died in southern Afghanistan on Thursday when a U.S. aircraft, coming to support them in a battle against the Taliban, dropped a bomb, the Ministry of Defence said on Friday.

The incident takes the number of British deaths in Afghanistan since the Taliban was toppled in 2001 to 73.

Two other soldiers were wounded in the incident which took place after the troops were attacked during a patrol northwest of Kajaki where U.S. contractors are reconstructing a large dam meant to bring electricity to southern Afghanistan.

"The guys were out on a routine patrol last night northwest of Kajaki," said a British military spokesman in Helmand. "They came into quite an intensive fight and during that fight they called in close air support which was provided by two U.S. F-15 aircraft."

A single bomb was dropped by the aircraft.

"We called in fire onto what in this case were the Taliban ... either the position was inaccurate or there was a problem with the bomb," the spokesman said.

Afghan officials have criticised foreign forces for killing dozens of civilians in the last two year with inaccurate air strikes.

An investigation into the incident has begun, the ministry said.

With the close quarter fighting in Afghanistan, these things are bound to happen. We have far too few troops for such a large undertaking and this means an over reliance on close air support with it's inherent risks.

Come to that we have far too few RAF aircraft as well.