[DAWN] An air attack has killed at least 11 Afghan coppers in the volatile and opium-rich southern province of Helmand...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
, officials said on Monday, in the latest apparent case of "friendly fire".
An interior ministry front man said the strike on Sunday was carried out by NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
forces but another ministry official could not confirm who was responsible.
NATO said in a statement it conducted no air strikes in Helmand on Sunday.
Afghanistan's own air force also has the capability to carry out aerial bombardments, but both the force and the defence ministry declined to comment.
"Eleven counter-narcotics police were killed and four others were maimed in an air strike carried out by international forces in Garmsir district of Helmand province," deputy interior ministry front man Najib Danish told AFP.
A front man for the counter-narcotics police at the interior ministry confirmed the toll but could not say who carried out the attack.
Helmand, the heartland of the global opium trade, is one of the biggest flash-points in the 14-year Taliban insurgency that erupted after a US-led invasion brought down their regime in 2001.