US casualties in Afghanistan reach 1,000

The 1000th American serviceman to die in Afghanistan had already been wounded by a hidden explosive in Iraq.

Marine Corporal Jacob Leitch drove his Humvee over a bomb that punched the dashboard radio into his face and broke his leg in two places. He spent two painful years recovering from that 2007 blast.

The 24-year-old wrote letters from his hospital bed begging to be sent back to the front lines, and died less than a month after being granted his wish.

The Texas Marine was killed last week when he stepped on a land mine in Helmand province. His death is a grim milestone in the Afghanistan war.

An Associated Press tally shows Leicht is the 1000th US serviceman killed in the Afghan combat, nearly nine years after the first casualty - also a soldier from the San Antonio area.

"He said he always wanted to die for his country and be remembered," said Jesse Leicht, his younger brother.

"He didn't want to die having a heart attack or just being an old man. He wanted to die for something."

AP bases its tally on Pentagon reports of deaths as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

Other news organisations count deaths elsewhere as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations in the Philippines, the Horn of Africa and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Meanwhile, military investigators found that "inaccurate and unprofessional" reporting by US operators of a Predator drone was responsible for a missile strike that killed 23 Afghan civilians in February, according to a report issued yesterday.

Release of the scathing report is part of a US effort to counter rising public anger over civilian deaths.

Twelve other civilians including a woman and three children were wounded in the missile strike.

Four American officers - two described as senior - received career-damaging reprimands, the US command said.

The top American and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, called on the Air Force to investigate the actions of the Predator crew.

"Our most important mission here is to protect the Afghan people," said McChrystal. "Inadvertently killing or injuring civilians is heartbreaking and undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will do all we can to regain that trust."

The attack happened on February 21 after the unmanned aircraft, controlled by a crew at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, spotted three vehicles on a main road in Uruzgan province about 12km from where US Special Forces and Afghan soldiers were tracking insurgents, the report said.

Suspecting the convoy was carrying fighters, the ground commander ordered an airstrike, and US helicopters fired missiles at the vehicles.

But the attack order was based on inaccurate information from the Predator crew and a flawed analysis of the situation by US commanders, said the report author, Army Major General Timothy McHale.

Poorly functioning command posts "failed to provide the ground force commander with the evidence and analysis that the vehicles were not a hostile threat, and the inaccurate and unprofessional reporting of the Predator crew ... deprived the ground force commander of vital information," McHale wrote.

"Information that the convoy was anything other than an attacking force was ignored or downplayed by the Predator crew."

After the first salvo, the helicopter crews stopped firing because they saw brightly coloured clothing on people in the convoy - a strong indication that women were present.

A video shot from the drone showed women and children.

McHale criticised commanders for failing to report "ample evidence" of civilian casualties for nearly 12 hours after the attack, while they tried to obtain confirmation.

- AP