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Three GIs Killed by U.S. Bomb
Thursday, December 6, 2001
By Scott Canon, Lauren Markoe & Martin Merzer
The Miami Herald
Juan O. Tamayo & Barry Shlachter contributed to this report

Experts offered two likely explanations: Either erroneous coordinates were relayed from the field or the bomb's aiming mechanism went awry.

CAMP RHINO, Afghanistan -- Source
Three American soldiers were killed and 20 others wounded by “friendly fire” Wednesday, and U.S. officials warned that the casualty toll could rise as the hunt for Osama bin Laden moves deeper into the perilous mountains of Afghanistan.

“It's no longer a game,” Marine Capt. Stewart Upton said after a 2,000-pound bomb dropped by a U.S. warplane fell within 100 yards of the soldiers' position near the last Taliban bastion of Kandahar. “It's life and death.”

It was America's most costly day of combat in Afghanistan, and it came as U.S. forces supported thousands of Afghans in a narrowing search for bin Laden and other hard-core terrorist and Taliban holdouts.

President Bush said he regretted the loss of life, but the U.S. soldiers “died for a noble and just cause.”
(More: Miami.com News Source)
2001 © The Miami Herald.

Reading through the article, it is possible that the three fatalities were the three calling in the air strike. It would appear they were extremely accurate in their calculations, but erred in the delivery of the data. For safety purposes, an air strike requires the transmission of the observer's (your) coordinates as a not-hit zone. Then there are the coordinates to the desired target (them). Juxtaposing the two coordinates will ruin a pilot's day, and end the forward observer's life.

Dan