Six people were killed and 10 wounded yesterday when a US Navy plane missed its target in a training exercise in Kuwait and dropped a bomb on parked cars near the Iraqi border, according to Pentagon officials. At least four of the dead were Americans and one was a New Zealander. There were also five Americans and two Kuwaitis among the injured as a result of the the accident during a joint US-British-Kuwaiti exercise at the Udairi bombing range, about 30 miles from the desert border with Iraq.
The plane, a Navy F-18 "Hornet" was operating from the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier patrolling the Gulf.
Early reports suggested that the pilot may have mistaken a group of parked vehicles for a target when it dropped a 500lb bomb on a group of military observers.
According to Kuwaiti officials, the vehicles had their lights on and were intended to guide the planes involved in a "close air support" exercise to wards their targets. US defence officials said it was too early yesterday to give the reasons for the accident.
Lieutenant Colonel Joe Lamarca, a spokesman for the US Central Command, said the accident occurred at around 4pm GMT.
"There were 16 confirmed casualties, which include dead and injured," he said, adding that the casualties were taken to a Kuwait military hospital.
Col Lamarca added that Kuwaiti, British and New Zealand forces were playing a support role in the exercise.
An MoD spokesman later confirmed that there were no British casualties. British soldiers had not been involved in that specific exercise and were nowhere near the area at the time of the accident, he said.
The accident comes at a time when the US Navy is struggling to recover from another lethal mishap, the deaths of nine Japanese, caused by a US submarine colliding with their fishing boat off the coast of Hawaii on February 9 during an emergency surfacing exercise.
The latest accident happened shortly after the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War and at a time when Arab sympathy for the plight of Iraq is at a height and when the US military presence in the region is increasingly unpopular.
President George Bush, speaking in Florida where he was promoting his tax proposals, called on an audience of supporters to hold a moment of silence for the dead, saying the accident was a reminder of "how dangerous service can be".
-- James Heartfield