Afghan air strike kills 9 civilians, villagers say
Last Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009 | 8:56 AM ET
The Associated Press
Afghan children watch a line of cars carrying dead bodies as they arrive Thursday in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The villagers claim the civilians were killed in an overnight air strike. (Abdul Khaleq/Associated Press)Nine civilians and two alleged militants are dead after two separate air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
An overnight air strike by international forces in Afghanistan killed nine civilians, including at least three children, villagers said Thursday. Afghan authorities said they had no reports of civilian deaths.
Residents of Korkhashien village drove the bodies to the governor's office in the nearby provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.
The convoy of vans and station wagons from Korkhashien drove from the governor's office to a central market, where the villagers shouted blame at both President Hamid Karzai and his international allies.
Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi confirmed an air strike in Korkhashien, but said eight Taliban militants were killed while hiding out in a compound.
Sgt. Angela Eggman, a U.S. spokeswoman for NATO forces, said she knew of some sort of incident in the area and it was being investigated.
Although NATO forces have retooled their mission to focus on protecting the population — and have been issued new rules for air strikes aimed at reducing civilian casualties — it is often difficult to distinguish militants from civilians in areas where the Taliban live among the people and often grew up in the villages they hide out in.
Suspected U.S. missile kills 2 in Pakistan
In Pakistan, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed two alleged militants in the North Waziristan tribal region.
Two intelligence officials said the drone-fired missiles struck Naurak village early Thursday. They said the missiles hit the house of a local resident and destroyed a car.
The attack site is not far from South Waziristan, a militant stronghold close to the Afghan border.
