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February 6, 2002
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- The first thing Lt. Bradley Maroyka and his men from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division were told in November when they arrived at the Qala-i-Jhangi prison revolt was to brace themselves.
A 2,000-pound "smart bomb" was on its way, called in on hundreds of armed Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at the south end of the vast, mud-walled fortress.
Within seconds, it landed with shattering effect. But instead of hitting the south end of the prison, Maroyka recalled, the satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition scored a direct hit on a Northern Alliance tank and five U.S. Special Forces troops on the fortress's northeast corner.
"We actually heard some of the American (Special Forces) who were with us say, "Oh my God, we think we just killed some of our own people,' " Maroyka recalled. "We just heard them saying, "Oh my God, we may have killed the wrong people.' "
Maroyka's 10th Mountain troops, called in to help evacuate American personnel from the prison, arrived to witness the first major friendly fire incident of the war in Afghanistan. It was early on Nov. 26.
Their account, told for the first time in interviews at their base camp in Mazar-e-Sharif, confirms the preliminary conclusion of the Pentagon that the geo-coordinates of the Northern Alliance tank and U.S. Special Forces were confused with those of the rioting prisoners and mistakenly fed into the bomb's guidance system.
With journalists kept well away from U.S. troops on the battlefield, the soldiers' account also provides the first inside look at how Special Forces called in conventional Army troops to help rescue CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, who had been interrogating prisoners a day earlier when the revolt erupted. CIA officials later revealed that Spann was believed to have been killed almost immediately by prisoners with concealed weapons, becoming the first U.S. combat casualty of the war.
On their way to the fortress Nov. 26, the 10th Mountain troops believed Spann might be alive.
The mission changed drastically once the bomb went awry.
Five Northern Alliance fighters in and around the tank were killed by the bomb. The Americans fighting with them were spared because the tank, struck directly, absorbed much of the blast, flipping over upon impact.