KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) A U.S. watchdog says sloppy blood collection and identification by Afghanistan's army may have led to the deaths of injured soldiers who received the wrong blood type.
The report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released late Thursday says more than 15,000 soldiers did not even have blood-type testing before entering the army and the method of identifying the blood type of thousands more is suspect.
The report said since January 2017 the National Afghan Army has not collected, tested, or validated blood tests of new recruits to know their blood type should they be injured.
The report said it received information that "soldiers have been killed from receiving the wrong type of blood" during treatment for injuries suffered in combat.