SAN FRANCISCO, May 21: British-led forces sweep through the mountains of eastern Afghanistan in the current Operation Condor looks another tragic case of mistaken identity as a local land dispute turned into something more global, press reports here said on Tuesday.
The Christian Science Monitor reported from Khost that there were no Al Qaeda fighters there, according to villagers in Chambagh, a village about 30kms northeast of Khost.
Australian commandos were simply caught in the crossfire of two local tribes - Sabri and Mangal - fighting over a mountain with no name.
On Thursday night, US AC-130 and helicopter gunships came to their rescue, pounding the mountaintop for 20 minutes. The result was 10 Afghans dead, three seriously injured, and another 12 villagers missing. None were Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters.
The paper recalled that this was not the first misunderstanding between the US-led coalition and local Afghans.
