AMERICAN warplanes mistakenly bombed a frontline position of both their own Special Forces and allied Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq yesterday, in the midst of a fierce battle with Iraqi troops.

Seventeen Kurdish peshmerga and a BBC translator were killed and 45 people were wounded, Kurdish leaders said. The wounded included two Americans and Wajeeh Barzani, a senior Kurdish commander, and the younger brother of Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. His condition was said to be critical and last night he was taken on US military aircraft for emergency treatment in Germany. Massoud Barzani’s son Mansur was also injured.

The US military said that it was investigating the incident, acknowledging only that coalition aircraft were operating in the area. Kurdish leaders and commanders, however, clearly blamed US warplanes for the incident.

The bombing took place yesterday afternoon close to the village of Dibaga, halfway between Kirkuk and Mosul. “There was firing and the American special forces asked for close air support, but unfortunately two aircraft bombed the joint forces,” Hoshyer Zebari, a Kurdish spokesman, said. “Many of our commanders were there. It involved some of our elite forces.”

The joint forces were advancing into Iraqi frontline territory after it was abandoned in an overnight withdrawal. By the time they reached Dibaga, however, the Iraqis were regrouping and had brought in tanks, prompting the Americans to call the bombers.

Abdul Rahman Kawrini, a senior peshmerga commander, was looking through his binoculars to check the Iraqi positions a mile away when the Special Forces radioed for support. A jet appeared in the sky above him and the next thing he knew he was blown off his feet.

“I didn’t even see the bombs,” he said. “I saw oceans of fire. People were screaming, terrible screams. There were pieces of flesh and blood everywhere. Some of those left alive didn’t know what had happened. They were in total shock.”

The bomb hit in the middle of the hilltop junction where the Americans and Kurdish had taken up their positions, a large convoy of vehicles parked around them. At least ten vehicles were destroyed, most of them part of a convoy led by Mr Barzani. who was visiting to check on the progress. Those sitting in the parked cars were killed instantly, others were peppered with razor- sharp shrapnel.

Among the injured were members of a BBC television crew, led by the veteran correspondent John Simpson, who were filming at the time of the blast. Mr Simpson’s translator, Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, was among those killed. Two hours after the blast, the scene was still one of carnage amid the charred and smoking vehicles. Amid the glass and twisted metal, there was a small crater. Mr Kawrini pointed to it. “The American Special Forces radioed to the pilot to bomb the crossroads,” he said.

“They hit here because there was another crossroads here.” As he spoke, shells began landing around, fired from the Iraqi tanks just over a mile down the road.

US Special Forces soldiers, dug into a foxhole about 200 yards away, continued to call in airstrikes as the shells rained down. Fighters roared across the sky, bombing Iraqi positions. Several Iraqi tanks were visible around the village below the hill.

Mr Zebari said he believed that the mistake was made because of the proximity of the two opposing forces, little over a mile apart from each other, and the fact that the peshmerga were holding tanks abandoned by the Iraqi forces. The peshmerga have little heavy weaponry, which could have added to the confusion.

“This does not undermine our resolution and commitment to work very closely with the coalition forces,” Mr Zebari said. “This is a war situation; these things can happen.”

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