Soldier killed by US gunfire in mistaken attack on British base

Lance Corporal Christopher Roney, 23, of 3rd Battalion The Rifles, died from head injuries he suffered while serving at Patrol Base Almas, in Sangin, Helmand, in December 2009.

The base had come under attack from insurgents and the platoon based there was busy fighting them off when air support was called in, Coroner Derek Winter said.

A drone fitted with a camera and two US Apaches flew to the patrol base, which was a compound with mud walls, bought from a local owner some weeks before and not on official maps.

British troops on the ground, who by this stage had won a firefight against their attackers, were incorrectly identified as the enemy and were hit by 30mm chain gun rounds.

Mr Winter, the Sunderland Coroner, said 200 rounds were fired before the mistake was spotted, leaving 11 injured on the ground.

L/Cpl Roney, a married former drayman, received emergency treatment but died from his injuries the next day.

Mr Winter said key personnel also mistakenly thought the British base was an insurgents’ compound despite the patrol base, 3km from Forward Operating Base Jackson, having a flagpole, a washing line, defensive constructions and personnel who were not dressed like the enemy, Mr Winter said, in summary of the evidence he expected to hear during the week-long inquest.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kitson, who watched live pictures of the attack, said it was a “tragic incident” and told the hearing the base at Almas was one of the hardest to defend.

It was set up in a “no-go area” known as the Taliban Playground but had limited vehicle access and “very rudimentary defences.

He said on the camera picture he saw it was impossible to identify those on screen.

“We could see black blobs running around but its just a blob. There’s no way at that distance of identifying the people. I could see muzzle flashes and projectiles being launched but I was the victim of my own assumptions.”

Six deaths had already occurred that week and there was a general nervousness about the base.

Concluding his evidence, he expressed his regret at what happened: “I want to record my considerable amount of regret and there’s not one of us that cannot think of something we might have done differently.”

Captain Palmer Winstanley, commanding L/Cpl Roney’s platoon, said insurgents had set off a large bomb and launched an attack with small arms fire.

“We were pretty much winning the firefight which means we pushed them back to a safe distance and hopefully they were going to move off into the night,” he said.

Then the base came under heavy attack from what he later realised were Apaches. “It was like nothing I have ever experienced before and I tried to establish what it could be,” he said.

Men were injured, a communication mast destroyed and the picture became confused. At around the same time, his men and staff at HQ realised the US attack helicopters were to blame.

Meanwhile, the enemy saw what happened and came back to renew the assault and got to within 30m of the base until a 500lb bomb was dropped on a compound they were using and they withdrew.

Asked by William Roney, the dead soldier’s brother, if the Apache’s presence was needed, Capt Winstanley replied: “We could have won the firefight ... As we were, we were OK.”

The inquest was adjourned.