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NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills 7 Civilians, Including 3 Children

26 March 2011 17:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A NATO airstrike targeting Taliban fighters Friday accidentally killed seven civilians, including three children, in the southern province of Helmand, one of the most insecure regions in the country, Afghan officials said, APA reports quoting The New York Times.

NATO officials are investigating the episode. It occurred in the Now Zad district when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force called in an airstrike on two vehicles believed to be carrying a Taliban leader and his associates. A NATO team assessing the damage discovered the civilians after the airstrike. NATO officials have not disclosed how many civilians were killed and wounded, and did not say whether suspected Taliban were among the casualties.

Afghan officials in Helmand said the dead included two men, two women and three children. Three more children and two adults were wounded, the Helmand governorâ€™s office said in a statement late Saturday.

Civilian casualties have been one of the most contentious issues in Afghanistan, exacerbating tensions in the delicate relationship between international forces and President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Karzai raised the issue again in a speech on Tuesday, listing the reduction of civilian deaths as an issue that must be addressed as Afghan forces begin taking over responsibility for security in some areas of the country this summer.

NATO officials offered only minimal details about the episode Saturday as they investigated. And local authorities in the province were either unreachable or were unaware of the attack because cellphone service has been out in the entire province for much of the last week on orders of the Taliban.

The cellphone disruption has caused chaos for business owners and residents in the province. With a dearth of reliable landlines, the province, like most of the country, has come to rely on mobile networks in recent years.

Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for Helmandâ€™s governor, who was in Kandahar on business, said by telephone that he had not been able to get information on the civilian deaths because of the cellphone cutoff.

â€œUnfortunately, I donâ€™t know what happened in Now Zad district,â€ he said. He added that the government was trying to get satellite phones to district centers across the province to improve intergovernmental communications.

A United Nations report this month said that 2,777 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2010, the deadliest toll in more than nine years of war. The Taliban were blamed for 75 percent of the deaths. The number of deaths by NATO forces declined 26 percent. But a number of high-profile episodes have led to continuing strains between NATO and the Afghan government.

This month alone, NATO airstrikes killed two children, brothers, as they tended their familyâ€™s fields, and an additional nine boys as they were collecting firewood.

Both episodes happened in the eastern province of Kunar and are under investigation. In another episode this month, a cousin of Mr. Karzai was killed in a NATO-led night raid in Kandahar Province.

Meanwhile, a suicide bomb attempt targeting a border police official in Kandahar Province on Friday left one child dead and four others wounded, local authorities there said. The attacker survived and was being treated at a hospital.