M A I N   N E W S

6 killed in accidental bombing

Dubai, March 13
Five American military personnel and a New Zealander were killed and seven others wounded when a US navy jet accidentally dropped a bomb during a training exercise at a bombing range in northern Kuwait last evening.

“The F-18 aircraft was participating in a routine close air support training exercise involving joint and coalition forces’’ when it dropped a 500-pound bomb on military observers at the Al-Udairi bombing range near Kuwait city, a Kuwaiti news agency despatch quoted a statement issued by the US Central Command in Washington as saying.

The US Central Command said the seven injured - five Americans and two Kuwaitis - were treated for wounds which were not life threatening. Two of them had already been discharged from hospital.

The Central Command said an investigation board had been set up to go into the accident, which occurred about 48 km from the Iraqi border, and how such tragedies could be prevented.