KABUL - Tragedy struck allied forces in Afghanistan yesterday as the country's former King stepped on to Afghan soil for the first time in almost three decades.
Four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight wounded in Afghanistan when a United States F-16 warplane dropped one or two bombs on them in a "friendly fire" incident.
Coming just days after the latest US deaths in Afghanistan, the incident marked the first Canadian casualties in an offensive combat operation since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Just a few hours later the plane carrying Afghanistan's frail King Mohammad Zahir Shah home from 29 years in exile in Italy landed in Kabul.
The 87-year-old Zahir Shah, who ruled for 40 years until he was deposed by a cousin while on holiday in Italy in 1973, returns as an ordinary citizen and not to take back the throne.
In Canada, General Ray Henault said the US plane clearly misidentified the Canadian forces, who were conducting a live-fire training exercise in the early hours local time, in a recognised training zone south of Kandahar.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien promised to investigate the incident.
"[US] President [George W.] Bush called me tonight to offer the sincerest condolences of the American people to the Canadian families. He also pledged complete cooperation with Canadian authorities who will carry out a thorough and complete investigation," Chretien said.
Henault said the F-16 would have been on a patrol of the skies above Afghanistan, on well-controlled routes, and was not connected with the training exercise.
He said it would normally have to get permission from the ground before attacking.
He said the Canadian troops were only firing at ground targets during the night-time exercise.
"How this sort of thing could happen is a mystery to us."
Because the exercise was in the middle of the night local time, he said there was no way the fighter flying at high altitude could visually identify the nationality of the Canadian troops before unleashing the 225kg bomb or bombs.
Henault said six of the injuries were serious, and the soldiers would be evacuated to a US medical facility either in nearby Uzbekistan or at Ramstein in Germany.
Two who were slightly injured will remain in Kandahar, base of the more than 800 Canadian troops serving with US forces in Afghanistan.
Five hundred Canadians had led US troops without casualties in an offensive in March in eastern Afghanistan, where they were flushing out caves thought to have harboured fighters of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
On Tuesday, four US troops were killed and one was badly injured while blowing up unexploded ordnance near Kandahar.
More than 30 US troops have died in Afghanistan or in the region since the United States began a campaign on October 7 that toppled the ruling Taleban and routed the al Qaeda network.
Before the latest incident, non-US military deaths among Western coalition forces had included an Australian, two Germans and three Danes.
Chretien said the Canadian casualties were an awful blow.
"Yet is my hope that some comfort may be found in the knowledge that those who have been taken were serving their country with valour and gallantry in a great struggle for justice and freedom."
Elsewhere, at least three people were killed in a bomb explosion in a busy market in the eastern Afghan city of Khost.
It quoted witnesses as saying the blast, the third in the city since the establishment of the interim Afghan government in December, took place only 300m from Khost military hospital.
The agency did not say how many people were wounded and there was no immediate word on whether the blast was politically motivated or a result of personal enmity.
Heavy arms are often used by Afghans to settle personal scores.
Many people in Afghanistan hope the King can become a symbol of national unity to bind together Afghanistan's warlords and feuding ethnic groups.
There was a red carpet and honour guard out at Kabul airport for the King's arrival, with some of Afghanistan's feuding warlords present in a show of support.
But in a sign of the sensitivity of the King's return, there was no announcement on radio and television of his homecoming.
Flags and banners of welcome, as well as crowds, were absent from Kabul streets.
After Italian and other security guards left the Italian C-130 plane that brought him back from exile, the King, wearing a brown leather jacket and still a regal figure, was the first person out of the aircraft.
Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai, a distant cousin of the King, and like him a majority Pashtun, walked on one side of Zahir Shah. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the powerful Uzbek warlord from the north, walked on the other side.
In other developments yesterday:
* CNN reported yesterday that captured al Qaeda fighters say Osama bin Laden was wounded in Tora Bora last year.
He ordered his lieutenants to disperse from the mountains.
CNN said the prisoners contradicted each other when interrogated about bin Laden's possible injuries and whereabouts.
US military officials said several al Qaeda questioned separately told the same story, that bin Laden was in Tora Bora in early December and then escaped the area.
* Bin Laden appeared again in an undated videotape yesterday hailing the September 11 attacks.
"More than US$1 trillion in losses resulted from these successful and blessed attacks and may God bless these martyrs and welcome them to paradise," bin Laden said in the footage aired by the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation.
The network said evidence on the tape suggested it was made in the first half of December.
The film resembled other footage aired this week by another Arabic channel, the Qatar-based satellite station al-Jazeera.
- REUTERS
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Canadians killed as King returns to Afghanistan
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