Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Canadian combat deaths were friendly fire

One of the Wikileaks war logs released yesterday contained a friendly fire report filed by the 205th RCAG U.S. military unit which states four Canadian soldiers were killed and seven other Canadians and an interpreter were wounded on Sept. 3, 2006, when a fighter jet dropped a guided bomb on a building they occupied during the second day of Operation MEDUSA. [bracketed explanations mine].
At 030414Z Sept 06 received SAF[small arms fire] & RPGS from sawtooth building. returned fire 1x GBU[Guided Bomb Unit] dropped on it.Sawtooth building is heavily damaged. only 4x sections remain standing. no activity observed. Casualties 4x CDN KIA[Killed in action] 4X CDN WIA[Wounded in action].
This was later updated to 4 dead and 7 wounded Canadians:

At 030419Z Sep received SAF and RPG fire on op, a total of WIA in these hour 7x
CDN, and 4x CDN KIA and 1x WIA interpreter Attack on: FRIEND

Type : Friendly Fire .... Category : Blue-Blue .... Affiliation : FRIEND

At the time the Canadian military reported that the four Canadian soldiers died in battles with Taliban forces.
CBC got official clarification of that last night from Jay Paxton, spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay :

"The loss of four Canadian soldiers on September 3rd, 2006, was the result of insurgent activity in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan," Jay Paxton said in an email Monday evening. "The only friendly fire incident from the time period in question occurred on September 4th, 2006."
Anyone think the Americans just casually inflate their friendly fire reports?
And what about the "guided bomb unit" in the US report?
Do the Taliban have fighter jets now?
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PS Gotta love Laura Lynch on CBC's As it Happens too.
She asked Julian Assange whether things weren't "better now under Obama" and whether Assange "had broken the law".
Obama - that would be the guy who just ordered up a 30,000 troop surge for a war that is already costing $7-billion a month to retake Kandahar.
Assange called her repeated questions on whether he had broken the law "naive". I thought that unnecessarily charitable of him.
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Yesterday Taliban Larry said the Wikileaks war logs had "nothing to do with Canada."

Update via Alain in comments :
Bombshell claim that friendly fire killed Canadian soldiers unravels :
US report discounted by soldiers who were there; "friendly fire" GBU rolled into Canadian troops but did not detonate.

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