NATO airstrike kills at least 15 civilians: Afghan officials

SAJAWAND, Afghanistan - Agence France-Presse

AFP Photo

At least 15 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a NATO airstrike on a home in Afghanistan's Logar province south of Kabul, Afghan officials said Wednesday.
 
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said "multiple insurgents" were killed in the airstrike, which was ordered after troops came under fire from insurgents.
 
But deputy provincial police chief Rais Khan Sadeq Abdulrahimzai told AFP: "18 civilians including women and children are dead," adding that seven Taliban insurgents were also killed.
 
Provincial government spokesman Din Mohammad Darvish said "around 15 civilians are dead" after the attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

An AFP correspondent said he saw at least 15 bodies that had been loaded into five vehicles and driven by villagers to the provincial capital of Pol-i-Alam.
 
He said he saw four children among the bodies, one as young as a year old and the oldest about 10 years old.
 
ISAF said in a statement a precision airstrike was called in after coalition forces were fired on as they conducted an operation to detain a Taliban leader.
 
"While conducting a follow-on assessment, the security force discovered two women who had sustained non-life-threatening injuries," the statement said.
 
"The security force provided medical assistance and transported both women to an ISAF medical facility for treatment.
 
"As a result of the operation, multiple insurgents were killed and the Afghan and coalition security force seized several weapons and a quantity of explosives." An ISAF spokesman told AFP later they were "assessing and gathering facts to try to determine what happened".