NP - Oops? Maybe Not...

[David Morris]

http://www.looksmart.com/r?lt&iabw&pin=020702x186eaa517d1be23ec71&panel=news{day=Tue{cat=TopStories{art=wed/ap/Qus-afghan-bomb.RHKq_Cl1{colorQus-afghan-bomb.RHKq_Cl1=FFFFFF

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, July 2 (AFP) - Afghan and US authorities began 
probing the bombing of a wedding party in central Afghanistan that killed 40 
people, amid fears of further casualties from two days of US airstrikes.

But the US rejected Afghan claims that they had mistaken traditional 
celebratory wedding firing for enemy fire, insisting their bomber planes had 
come under heavy direct attack.

"The Afghan reports didn't match our conflicting reports," the chief US 
military spokesman in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Roger King said.

Local officials said 40 wedding guests, mainly women and children, were 
killed and 120 wounded in the Sunday night strike on Kakrakai village in the 
Dehrawad district of Uruzgan province.

"It was a wedding party in which some people were firing in jubilation and 
the Americans misunderstood and bombarded the place," one official said.

But King said hostile forces were in the area, believed to be a stronghold 
of forces loyal to the vanquished Taliban's elusive spiritual leader Mullah 
Omar.

"I don't know what was going on in this village, except there were people 
shooting at coalition forces with heavy calibre machine guns and they 
returned fire," King said.





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