U.S. bombings near Kobane target own supply drop

U.S. warplanes bombed a bundle of supplies that went astray near the Syrian border town of Kobane after they had air dropped it for besieged Kurdish defenders, the military said Monday.

U.S. Central Command said the bundle was targeted by warplanes to prevent it from falling into the hands of enemy Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters.

“All other resupply bundles were successfully delivered,” the command said of the air drops, the first of weapons, food and medicine since the fighting for Kobane began.

Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes also carried out six air strikes around Kobane Sunday and Monday, hitting ISIS fighting and mortar positions and a truck.

And U.S., French and British aircraft carried out six more strikes in neighboring Iraq against ISIS positions near Fallujah, the Baiji oil refinery.

In September, Iraqi pilots committed a similar blunder by accidentally dropping food and arms to ISIS militants.

Iraqi media reported that the air force was trying to drop food and arms to Iraqi soldiers besieged by ISIS militants in Saglawyah when the aid was mistakenly delivered to the militants.

“The pilots either do not have enough experience, intelligence or it was a technical mistake,” Ghassan Attiyah, president of the Iraqi Foundation for Development and Democracy, told Al Arabiya News at the time.

“In order for strikes to be precise, there needs to be advanced equipment coupled with on-the-ground intelligence to help them locate [ISIS] targets,” the London-based Attiyah, who authored “The Making of Iraq: 1908-20,” said.