Video: US soldiers bombed by their own air support in Afghanistan

A video has emerged online showing what appears to be US mortar teams in Afghanistan being bombed by their own air support.

The explosion, targeted at a distant ridge believed to have enemy combatants in front of the soldiers, ended up demolishing a wooden building at the encampment directly behind a machine gun nest housing several people.

Once they take a moment to collect themselves, the first thing said is "we almost f***in' died."

Following the explosion and check of the surrounding area, there's a second angle edited in at three minutes from a site in the distance, which shows the size of the explosion on the hilltop and the panic from the ground.

The clip was uploaded to both LiveLeak.com and YouTube by user Funker530, who regularly uploads combat footage from the US military.

Additional info provided by the uploader, claiming to be from an interview with the cameraman, identified the bomb as a 500lb (227kg) explosive, which landed just 15m away from the mortar nest.

"Honestly we had dropped so many bombs up to that point that the thought never even crossed my mind that this could even happen," the cameraman said.

"About a half second before impact you could hear the bomb screaming in like I hadn’t ever heard before, and I definitely knew at that point something was off. After the initial realization that it had hit behind us, we were so scatterbrained trying to figure out what happened. It hit so close to the guys in the tower it actually knocked the fill out of radios."

The sergeant had reportedly ordered everyone to "stand to" – to assume combat positions – which avoided casualties, as three soldiers had been standing in the wooden building that can be seen destroyed in the footage.

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Footage uploaded by Funeker530. His interview with the cameraman can be read online here.

Via LiveLeak.com.