Errant U.S. Rocket Strike Kills Civilians in Afghanistan

MARJA, Afghanistan — An errant American rocket strike on Sunday hit a compound crowded with Afghan civilians in the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, killing at least 10 people, including 5 children, military officials said.
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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Troops under attack in Marja, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, on Sunday. More Photos »
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Avoiding such civilian deaths, which came on the second day of a major allied offensive around Marja, has been a cornerstone of the war strategy by the top American commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. He apologized to President Hamid Karzai, saying, “We deeply regret this tragic loss of life.”

The strike came after American Marines and Afghan soldiers had been taking intense small-arms fire from a mud-walled compound in the area, American officers said. The answering artillery barrage instead hit a building a few hundred yards way, striking with a roar and sending a huge cloud of dust and smoke into the air. As the wind pushed the plume away, a group of children rushed outside.

“The compound that was hit was not the one we were targeting,” said Capt. Joshua Biggers, the commander of Company K, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, which had been engaged in a rolling gun battle with Taliban insurgents throughout the day.

It was unclear whether one or more rockets hit the building. Officers said the barrage had been fired from Camp Bastion, a large British and American base to the northeast, by a weapons system known as Himars, an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Its munitions are GPS-guided and advertised as being accurate enough to strike within a yard of their intended targets. General McChrystal said in a statement that he was suspending use of the weapon system “until a thorough review of this incident has been conducted.”

There were conflicting reports about the number of dead in the strike. Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for Helmand Province’s governor, said in a telephone interview that 10 people had been killed. But American soldiers in the area said 11 civilians had died, and the joint military command, known as the International Security Assistance Force, put the toll at 12.

Sunday was an intensive day of fighting around Marja, in an area of irrigated steppes and rural villages where a combined force of about 15,000 Afghan and foreign troops, led by American Marines, is now trying to break Taliban control.

As more troops continued streaming into the town of Marja itself, setting up checkpoints and outposts along the way, patrols and exhaustive house-to-house searches for insurgents and weapons intensified, military officials said.

For a second day, Afghan and NATO military officers also held a series of meetings with local Afghan leaders in Marja, said Flight Lt. Wendy Wheadon, a British officer and spokesman for the international security force.

A main thrust of the offensive has been to smooth the way for permanent government rule in the area, which has remained a durable Taliban stronghold in the years since the 2001 American invasion.

Despite the heavy fighting, reports of allied casualties have been low. The International Security Assistance Force issued a news release indicating that a non-American soldier was killed Sunday by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan, but did not specify whether that was a result of the Marja offensive.

A senior Afghan commander, Gen. Sher Mohammed Zazai, said that so far, there had been no deaths of Afghan troops, who make up the bulk of the combined force. One American Marine and one British Marine were reported killed on the first day.

The battle started before dawn on Saturday, when about 6,000 troops began being flown into Marja itself.

Among the vanguard were Company K and an accompanying Afghan Army platoon, which remained alone in their area of the Taliban stronghold for the second day, engaged in off-and-on gun battles from 8:30 a.m. until just before sunset.

Two of the American company’s Marines were wounded by gunfire on Sunday, including one shot in an arm and another through his left shoulder shortly before the Himars rocket strike. No Afghan soldiers with the company had been wounded by nightfall.

The Marines had positioned themselves on Saturday night in one outpost and two small smaller patrol bases. The first shots from the Taliban began minutes after patrols left two of the positions on Sunday morning. Gunfire, along with occasional shoulder-fired rockets and mortars, boomed throughout the day, as the Taliban surrounded the company, probing and attacking from different directions as the hours passed.