By KUNA,
Kabul : An air strike by the US-led coalition troops killed eight Afghan civilians and injured two others in western Afghanistan, the military said on Thursday.
Earlier, Afghan police reported the civilian casualties, but the foreign troops did not comment at the time.
A statement released from the coalition forces’ Bagram base on Thursday morning, said that their convoy was on a routine patrol in Bakwa district of Farah Province when they came under fire from a number of houses.
The coalition convoy returned fire and called close air support to target the “enemy” positions. “A house was hit; eight civilians were killed, two others injured,” said the statement.
Regretting the civilian casualties, the coalition troops reiterated they never intentionally target non-combatants. The military said the incident was under investigation.
Meanwhile, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), in a separate statement, said that the troops destroyed two bunkers of munitions in Zirok district of Paktika Province in the southeastern zone of Afghanistan.
Soldiers from TF Currahee received information regarding the location of enemy munitions in two separate bunkers near a combat outpost. The soldiers called in an air strike to dispose of the enemy munitions. The two bunkers were targeted from an aircraft and their destruction was confirmed by secondary explosions.
The statement said the troops identified insurgents in the area immediately after the air strike and dropped two bombs on their positions. However, it did not mention casualties among the “insurgents”.
Paktika Province is bordering the troubled border areas of Afghanistan. Reports from the area two days back suggested that NATO troops were amassing there with heavy arms.
Some reports also suggested that the NATO forces’ gathering in the area close to the Pakistan tribal belt was to initiate an operation against militants hiding on the Pakistani side of the rugged border.