A bout of friendly fire in Afghanistan on Monday claimed the lives of five American soldiers, making it one of the deadliest such occurrences since 2010.

B-1 bombers initiated an errant strike in the Zabul Province on Monday killing five U.S. Special Operations fighters stationed in the area, reports state.

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The casualties occurred when the unit came in contact with enemy forces. The U.S. Special Forces were in the area conducting sweeps of polling places ahead of run-offs for the Afghanistan Presidential Election when they were confronted with enemy fire.

The troops were reportedly returning to base when they were ambushed by insurgents, and although backup came to their aid, the air strike mistakenly targeted and killed its own soldiers.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, reported that insurgents were attacking the U.S. forces when helpicopters intervened and began accidentally shooting at their own troops.

The incident represents one of the deadliest friendly fire accidents in the 13-year history of US involvement in Afghanistan.

According to reports, the Islamist Taliban has been on the offensive as the US plans to withdraw all troops by the end of 2014.

The Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan after U.S. military troops became involved in the country following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) reported that an investigation is currently underway to determine what led up to the fatal event.

It is not fully clear yet why the bomb was dropped in the area where the American forces were or if the five killed in the incident were hit by friendly fire. The ISAF investigation hopes to clear these doubts up and lay rest to what has been a single incident in over a decade of turbulent involvement in the Middle-eastern country.

Since the conflict in Afghanistan began in October 2001, the US has experienced over 2,000 American casualties.

TagsUS, soldiers, Dead, Afghanistan, friendly fire