OTTAWA, April 18: Four Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday when a US jet mistakenly fired on them during a training exercise, and Ottawa said it was looking for answers on how the accident took place.

Canadian Defence Minister Art Eggleton said he was shocked by the incident in which a US F-16 warplane dropped a 225-kg laser-guided bomb on the soldiers, inflicting Canada’s first casualties in a major combat operation since the 1950-53 Korean war.

“There is no question of outrage on our behalf, it was an accident, but we need to know what happened,” he said in a brief interview.

“We all want to have it done just as quickly as possible. Everybody wants the answers. The government wants the answers, the families want the answers. We want to know soon.”

Eggleton said Canada and the United States would be carrying out separate probes into the attack, which also injured eight Canadian soldiers. But it was too soon to say whether there would be a joint investigation.

“It was certainly a shock. We know the risk our people take when they’re on these missions. You don’t expect it’s going to be accidental,” he said. The soldiers were part of a light infantry battalion based in the western city of Edmonton.

In Washington, a US defence official said preliminary evidence indicated the jet had attacked the Canadians because the pilot thought he had come under fire from the ground.

“It is just a terrible tragedy,” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said in Washington.

The accident took place in a clearly defined training zone in southern Afghanistan early in the morning..—Reuters