An air strike by foreign-led forces killed 20 Taliban fighters and 25 civilians, including 12 members of a family, in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, the provincial police chief said on Friday. Hussien Andiwal said the raid had taken place on Thursday night as part of an operation against Taliban fighters by foreign forces and Afghan troops. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed its troops had called in air support after being attacked in Helmand province, and said it was investigating reports of a “small number” of civilian casualties. “We are concerned about reports that some civilians may have lost their lives during this attack,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mike Smith, a NATO spokesman.
Another provincial police official Colonel Mohammad Hassan said the bombing came after Taliban fighters had attacked an ISAF convoy from among houses and gardens in a village. About 20 Taliban were also reportedly killed in the strike after midnight, he said. “The NATO forces’ air strike on the area mistakenly targeted two to three civilian houses, killing 25 civilians,” he said. They included nine women and three children aged from six months to two years old, he said, adding that the bodies of the dead were lying where they had been hit.
The information that 20 Taliban were killed had come from “reports we get from the local people,” he said. “The militants seem to have taken the Taliban bodies with them.”
The ISAF said the target of the strike was a compound “assessed to have been occupied by up to 30 insurgent fighters, most of whom were killed in the engagement.”
“ISAF troops are now investigating reports that a small number of civilians may also have been in the compound,” it said in a statement. One ISAF soldier was wounded in the engagement.
Moreover, Taliban militants killed seven Afghan policemen and wounded a soldier from the US-led coalition in separate ambushes around the country. According to an Afghan official, rebels attacked a joint patrol by Afghan police and coalition forces overnight in the eastern province of Nangarhar. “One border policeman was killed while a coalition solider and one Afghan policeman were wounded in the attack in Pachir Wa Agam district,” said Noor Agha, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
A second patrol by Afghan police was ambushed in neighbouring Chaparhar district and three policemen were killed and two others wounded, the spokesman added. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. In another ambush three policemen were killed and five were wounded in southern Kandahar province, district police chief Zemarai Khan said, adding that his deputy was also among those attacked. He blamed Taliban for the attack.
Dutch ISAF forces have killed two Taliban leaders in “heavy fighting” this week in Uruzgan province, General Dick Berlijn told reporters in The Hague.“Two mullahs have died in the fighting” which dealt “a heavy blow” to the Taliban, he said.