WASHINGTON – The death toll from an accidental American bombing of U.S. and anti-Taliban opposition troops in Afghanistan rose to nine last Thursday when a sixth Afghan soldier died from injuries sustained in the strike, the Pentagon said. Initial reports after Wednesday‘s „friendly fire“ accident said three U.S. special forces soldiers and five opposition troops were killed by an errant 908 kg bomb dropped north of Kandahar by an American B-52 bomber. But Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters on Thursday that one of the 18 Afghan troops injured and evacuated to the U.S. Navy warship Bataan in the northern Indian Ocean had later died. „One additional member of the Afghan opposition groups who was on the Bataan has died,“ she said. A total of 20 U.S. special forces troops were also injured in the attack.

One of the injured Americans was evacuated to a U.S. military facility in Germany for treatment. Most of the others were being treated at an American Marine base in the desert south of Kandahar. The Pentagon on Wednesday night identified the three U.S. Army soldiers killed as Master Sgt. Jefferson Donald Davis, 39, of Tennessee; Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Henry Petithory, 32, of Massachusetts; and Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of California. They were from the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort

Campbell in Kentucky. A B-52 flying in support of anti-Taliban forces north of Kandahar dropped a bomb close to the U.S. troops and anti-Taliban forces on Wednesday after the air strike was requested by the Americans against Taliban positions nearby. The bomb also slightly injured Hamid Karzai, the Pashtun tribal chief named to lead an interim government in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. Karzai was named under an agreement signed by Afghan rivals in Bonn on Wednesday. Reuters