Is it January yet?

Payback's a bitch.

1. One Afghani tribe, opposed to the one that lost the 47 civilians, helped the US call in the airstrike - either from near to where the tragedy occurred, or actually in the US or NATO regional command centre, & persuaded the US/NATO commander that the targets for the three single LGB (laser-guided bomb) attacks were legitimate targets (ie Taliban).

2. Alternatively or also, either the pilot or the mission control commander at base (more likely the latter) were new to Afghanistan & therefore inexperienced - both in real-life warfare, & also in how things can work out very unexpectedly for well-meaning non-Afghanis!

Interestingly, I saw a BBC video clip in which their reporter & his camera crew walked totally without escort all around the area, which allegedly had been full of Taliban a few days before & therefore deserving of the airstrike that had killed the 47 civilians in the 3 separate LGB bomb strikes. The tribes people were digging graves, but there were not enough bodies for all the graves because (as they said) very few body parts had survived the bomb blasts & therefore were needing burial. That surely is pointless in a place where the ground is rock-hard, unless perhaps the whole thing was contrived anyway!