‘Friendly Fire’ Bombing Kills 3 U.S. Soldiers

Three U.S. Green Berets were killed and 20 were wounded in the battle to seize the southern Afghan city of Kandahar early Wednesday when an American bomber dropped a massive “smart bomb” about 100 yards away in the first deadly “friendly fire” incident to befall U.S. troops in the war, Pentagon officials said.

The blast also killed five Afghans and injured 20 others as they fought alongside the U.S. soldiers, who were locked in a heated gun battle with Taliban forces a few miles north of Kandahar, the last major stronghold of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, defense officials said.

The opposition forces were led by Hamid Karzai, a Pushtun tribal chief who was named prime minister of the provisional Afghan government Wednesday by a coalition of anti-Taliban Afghans meeting in Germany. Karzai might have been slightly injured in the blast but “has been visible and seems to be fine,” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said.

The U.S. Central Command, which is directing the war, began an investigation into why the 2,000-pound precision-guided bomb landed close enough to strike U.S. Special Forces who had called for air support.

The Pentagon identified those killed as Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of Frazier Park, Calif.; Master Sgt. Jefferson Donald Davis, 39, of Watauga, Tenn.; and Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Henry Petithory, 32, of Cheshire, Mass.

They were members of the Army’s 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group stationed at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Reached at his Frazier Park home, Prosser’s father spoke briefly about his son.

“He was a warrior, and he was doing what he wanted to do,” said Brian D. Prosser. “He was a brave man, and he was willing to pay the price.”

Prosser, a 10-year Army veteran, is survived by his wife, Shawna, his parents and three brothers, Jarudd, Mike and Reed.

Jarudd, 22, a college student, last spoke to his brother three months ago.

“He was a leader, a warrior and proud to be a soldier . . . “ Jarudd said. “He’s my role model.

Elsewhere on the battleground, as opposition soldiers entered caves in northeastern Afghanistan in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, reports persisted that Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian physician widely regarded as Bin Laden’s top aide, died in bombing attacks there. Aleem Shah, the front-line commander for anti-Taliban soldiers in the city of Jalalabad, said he received word of the death Wednesday morning by walkie-talkie.

But officials at the Pentagon, CIA and State Department were unable Wednesday to verify the reports of the death, which would be nearly as serious a blow to the Al Qaeda terrorist network as the elimination of Bin Laden. A U.S. intelligence source said reports that members of Zawahiri’s family were killed in Tora Bora “appear to have a greater degree of credibility.”

Responding to the Kandahar accident, Pentagon officials cautioned that they didn’t yet know enough to evaluate it and declined to speculate on the cause. But neither the highflying B-52 plane nor the bomb used in the attack is among the weapons most closely tailored to ground-support missions.

The B-52 might have been the closest warplane in the region, said Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Other military officials speculated that the U.S. forces calling in the strikes might have requested massive bombing to take out large numbers of Taliban ground troops.

Other warplanes in the region might have offered more surgical air cover. When Marine Super Stallion transport helicopters pulled the wounded from the scene about two hours after the incident, they were accompanied by low-flying Cobra attack helicopters designed to support ground troops with heavy fire. Calling in airstrikes on enemy forces nearby is “one of the potentially most hazardous type of missions” a soldier encounters, Stufflebeem said.

The bomb that killed the servicemen, a Joint Direct Attack Munition, is the same type that injured five U.S. servicemen and a number of opposition fighters who were trying to quell a prison uprising in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif last month. That incident is also under investigation.

The bomb, first used in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s air war in Yugoslavia in 1999, has a guidance tail kit that converts unguided “dumb bombs” into precision munitions.

Stufflebeem said that as a naval aviator, “I wanted at least 4,000 feet of separation from that weapon when it went off.”

The battle deaths underscored the heightened peril U.S. forces face in battling the most intransigent elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda as they make a final stand in Kandahar, the Islamic former regime’s spiritual capital.

A combination of U.S. air power, special operations troops and opposition armies has drawn an anti-Taliban curtain across Afghanistan. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have taken pains in recent days to warn Americans that the most dangerous part of the war lies ahead in the hunt for holdouts.

President Bush, who warned this week that “there will be fatalities,” offered his condolences to the families of the slain soldiers Wednesday.

“I, along with all the rest of America, grieve for the loss of life in Afghanistan,” the president said. “Our prayers and sympathies go to the families. And I want the families to know that they died for a noble and just cause, that the fight against terror is noble and it’s just, and they defend freedom. And for that, we’re grateful.”

Ultimately, Pentagon strategists said, the blame lies with the Taliban.

“We did not ask for this war. We did not start this war,” Pentagon spokeswoman Clarke said. “And every casualty rests at the feet of the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

The fatalities bring to four the number of U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan. CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann, 32, died Nov. 25 during a prison uprising near Mazar-i-Sharif. Five U.S. service members have died in noncombat incidents.

The danger is likely to increase as U.S. Special Forces continue to engage Taliban troops near Kandahar. Marines stationed southwest of the city have not engaged in firefights yet but are helping Pushtun forces in their efforts to take the city.

“Opposition groups are now closing in on Kandahar,” said Maj. James Parrington, executive officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Battalion Landing Team 1. “We are supporting them by conducting offensive operations.”

Warplanes continued to attack reported Taliban havens. In grainy Pentagon videos shot Sunday, F-16s blasted what looked like office buildings that reportedly housed Al Qaeda fighters outside Kandahar.

Hope for a negotiated Taliban retreat from Kandahar grew Wednesday when several senior Taliban officials met with Karzai, the nominee for prime minister who was reportedly injured in the U.S. bombing.

“This was the first time that a senior delegation from the Taliban came to see me personally. We discussed everything concerning a peaceful transfer of power . . . and I hope the Taliban will hand over the powers peacefully within one or two days,” Karzai told the BBC.

On the ground, there was a lull in fighting south of Kandahar’s airport as the anti-Taliban militia that has tried for days to seize the facility paused to reevaluate its strategy.

“Today we had a spectacular day, but if we want to continue our attack, we will be putting civilian homes in jeopardy. So we will have to come up with another method,” said Khalid Pushtoon, a spokesman for tribal leader Gul Agha Shirzai’s forces.

In the northeast, opposition forces pounded the Tora Bora hide-out with tanks, artillery and 1,000 foot soldiers. U.S. warplanes continued heavy bombing of the mountain redoubt, where Bin Laden reportedly has been sighted. Invading Afghans moved into the valley and seized several low-lying caves, their commander said. Several Afghan soldiers were wounded in the gunfire, and Al Qaeda fighters were presumed dead in the bombing attacks.

“If we find them alive, well and good,” front-line commander Shah said. “But this is a war, and we’ll get them by hook or by crook.”

Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters are trapped in Tora Bora. Snow fell in the mountains Monday, sealing the passages into Pakistan. Afghan forces blocked off the road to Jalalabad to the north and took control of paths linking the underground network to neighboring villages.

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Times staff writers Megan K. Stack in Jalalabad and Kim Murphy in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.