Iraq investigating killing of soldiers in apparent US strike

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter says an airstrike Friday that killed as many as 10 Iraqi soldiers was a “mistake that involved both sides”.

Carter’s remarks came during a visit to the Middle East when he spoke with reporters aboard the USS Kearsarge in the Persian Gulf.

Iraqi security forces on the ground near Fallujah, an area where the Islamic State group is known to be active, provided the information that led to the airstrikes, the USA military said.

A third air strike was carried out without taking into account the distance that had been covered, which resulted in deaths among Iraqi forces too, Iraq’s joint operations command said in a statement.

Defense minister Khalid al-Abeidi said Iraqi one officer was killed and nine soldiers also died in the strike Friday.

“He (Abadi) and I agreed that this was an event that we both regretted and that there would be an investigation of it, but that these kinds of things happen when you’re fighting side by side”.

“We will conduct a thorough investigation and express deepest condolences for any loss of life among fearless Iraqi soldiers fighting ISIL”, top United States envoy to the coalition Brett McGurk said on social media, using another acronym for IS.

Hakim al-Zamili, the chairman of the security and defense committee in the Iraqi parliament, said action should be taken against the pilot who conducted the airstrike, NBC News reported.

“We lost 10 of our soldiers”, Khaled al-Obeidi said in Baghdad, adding that “an investigation into the incident was opened”.

The Iraqi leader, who heads a fractured government that remains deeply suspicious of USA intentions, temporarily declined Carter’s offer of advisers and close air support with Apache helicopters to help recapture Ramadi from Islamic State.