Newly chosen Afghan leader Hamid Karzai has played down reports he was injured by the 2,000 pound bomb which killed three US soldiers and five anti-Taliban fighters today.
Initial reports said Karzai, the proposed leader of the post Taliban government in Afghanistan, had been injured by the so-called ‘friendly fire’ incident, but he told a TV station tonight that he had not been involved.
"Have you ever heard an injured man talking like this? Nothing has happened.
"The world about me is completely peaceful. I am some 20 kilometres from Kandahar."
Earlier a Pentagon official said Karzai suffered "scrapes and bruises, not from the bomb but from dirt and gravel and stuff".
Defense officials said a precision-guided 2,000-pound bomb dropped by the eight-engine jet landed close to US and opposition troops as the high-flying aircraft attempted to hit Taliban troops defending the southern Afghan city.
It was the worst incident of friendly fire involving American troops since the US-led bombing campaign began in Afghanistan.
"It's tragic when something like this happens," Pentagon spokeswoman Ms Victoria Clarke said of the incident involving the second and third combat deaths of Americans in the war. A CIA agent was killed earlier in fighting near Mazar-i-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan.
The names of the killed and wounded were withheld pending notification of relatives. The wounded were transferred by helicopter to a US Marine Corps airstrip base in the desert south of Kandahar, according to a Marine spokesman at the base.
The incident took place at about 12.30 a.m. EST (5.30 a.m. Irish time) when the B-52, flying in support of opposition forces, dropped its ordnance in close proximity to friendly forces, the US military's Central Command said in a statement from its headquarters in Tampa. Florida.