Friendly Fire Kills 5 Afghan Soldiers

Five Afghan soldiers were killed by German troops in a friendly fire incident in Kunduz province. As part of a NATO-led mission, the Germans had been fighting with Taliban insurgents in the same area and had lost three of their own. The German troops were moving to replace casualties when a civilian vehicle came toward them. It didn’t stop, so an artillery tank fired on the vehicle, only later learning it had been carrying Afghan soldiers. The Afghan defense ministry said they were bringing food to other Afghan troops when the shooting happened. "We work extremely hard to coordinate and synchronize our operations, and incidents such as this hurt these efforts,” a NATO spokesman said. “We deeply regret the loss of lives from our Afghan partners."