Report: U.S. special forces ordered errant Afghan strike

U.S. Special Operations forces ordered the air strike that killed 27 Afghan civilians today, the Wall Street Journal reports:

U.S. Special Operations Forces ordered an airstrike that killed at least 27 civilians in southern Afghanistan and the soldiers may not have satisfied rules of engagement designed to avoid the killing of innocents, Afghan and coalition officials said Monday.

The airstrike Sunday hit a group of minibuses in a remote part of the south near the border between Uruzgan and Daykundi provinces. The area is hundreds of miles from Marjah, where the largest allied offensive since 2001 is now in its second week. But the airstrike nonetheless illustrated one of the major problems for coalition forces as they try to win over civilians in Marjah and across Afghanistan: figuring out who is a civilian and who is an insurgent—and not killing the civilians.

By contrast, operations now being carried out by conventional forces, such as the Marines fighting in Marjah, place a greater emphasis on protecting ordinary people.

Afghanistan's cabinet called the latest airstrike "unjustifiable." Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials ordered an immediate investigation into the incident, and both sides dispatched investigative teams to the site, officials said.

A large proportion of the thousands of civilians killed by coalition forces since 2001 have been slain in errant airstrikes, and the anger over such deaths runs deep here. ...

Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has ordered a policy shift towards protecting the Afghan population over killing insurgents, is a former commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command.