US Marine blamed for ‘friendly fire’ incident

THE worst US “friendly fire” incident of the Iraq war has been blamed on a Marine captain who called fighter jets to strike suspected Iraqi positions last March, unaware that dozens of Marines were fighting in the area, defence officials said yesterday.

Ten Marines were killed and three wounded in the incident near the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya and an investigation report released yesterday, said the dead were so shot up by Iraqis and A-10 Air Force jets that it was almost impossible to determine exactly how they died.

But the year-long probe by an 11-member US military team concluded that actions by the unidentified Marine captain, a ground-based air controller, directly resulted in the confused incident on March 23, 2003.