UPDATED Afghanistan Feature: How Did A US Drone Manage to Kill 23 Innocent Men and Boys? (Cloud)
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 7:29
UPDATE 0635 GMT: US military officials have said that a Marine reservist and a Navy corpsman were killed in a Predator drone airstrike in Afghanistan last week in an apparent case of friendly fire.
A Marine unit under fire called in a drone attack on "hot spots" moving in their direction. Those "hot spots" turned out to be Marine reinforcements, including the two US troops killed in the strike.
This is believed to be the first time that US personnel have been killed by a Predator.
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Nearly three miles above the rugged hills of central Afghanistan, American eyes silently tracked two SUVs and a pickup truck as they snaked down a dirt road in the pre-dawn darkness.
The vehicles, packed with people, were 31/2 miles from a dozen U.S. special operations soldiers, who had been dropped into the area hours earlier to root out insurgents. The convoy was closing in on them.