The Iraqi government said Saturday that a U.S. airstrike killed 10 Iraqi soldiers, a misfire that has led the United States to launch its first investigation into a so-called friendly fire incident in Iraq since it began bombing Islamic State targets last year.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said an American aircraft appeared to have conducted the strike Friday south of the city of Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad.
During a visit Saturday to the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship in the Gulf, Carter said he had expressed his condolences for the Iraqi deaths in a call with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
“He and I agreed that this was a event that we both regretted,” Carter told reporters after the call, which he made aboard the Kearsarge. “It’s tragic . . . but he and I both recognized that things like this can happen in war.”
Carter said the incident appeared to have been “a mistake that involved both sides.” He said there would be an investigation.
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