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Privatising War: NATO contractor rearms Taleban

Mike Dobson | 18.04.2008 10:17 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Terror War | World

AFP reports a "private helicopter company" hired by NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has dropped ammunition , food and water into a Taleban held area in southern Afghanistan.

NATO has admitted that a helicopter mistakenly dropped military supplies in the wrong place in southern Afghanistan which have subsequently disappeared.
The ammunition including rocket-propelled grenades as well as food and water was probably seized by Taliban militants.

An ISAF statement says: "On March 25, a private helicopter company was contracted, on behalf of an ISAF unit, to resupply an Afghan National Police (ANP) outpost located in a remote mountain area [of Zabul provine]."

"Unfortunately, due to a human error in transcribing the latitude and longitude of the location, the load was dropped in another remote area."

The "forces sent aircraft for a visual reconnaissance, however, the missing cargo could not be found," .

Afghan media citing local officials and a parliamentarian from the troubled province, a hotbed of insurgent activity, have reported that the weapons were taken by the Taliban.

- originally reported by AFP

Mike Dobson