Afghan officials say NATO airstrike killed soldiers, civilians
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KABUL -- Afghan officials said Saturday that a NATO airstrike inadvertently killed several Afghan soldiers and policemen a day earlier in northwestern Afghanistan.
The strike took place amid fighting in Badghis province as Afghan and U.S. troops were searching for two American paratroopers who disappeared in the area Wednesday.
According to the U.S. military, soldiers on the search operation came under an attack that killed four Afghan soldiers and two policemen, and wounded five American soldiers and 17 Afghan security forces.
But Afghan officials attributed the casualties to a NATO airstrike that hit in or around a coalition base in the area. The district's mayor, Abdul Shukor, put the death toll of the airstrike at 20 -- six Afghan soldiers, two policemen, and 12 civilians. Shukor described the area of the bombing as a military checkpoint near a warehouse.
A NATO statement said authorities were investigating whether "close air support" caused some of the casualties. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Vician, said earlier Saturday that the casualties resulted from a "hostile engagement, not an accident." He said he had no reports of civilian casualties in the area.
The Taliban said earlier that it had found the drowned bodies of the two soldiers, but U.S. officials did not confirm they had died. A parliament member from Badghis, Amir Tawakal, said the soldiers drowned while they were fishing.
Vician said he did not know whether the two 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers were on foot or in their vehicles when they disappeared, but that he believed they were part of a larger group of soldiers.
