At least five civilians, including three children, were killed overnight in a NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan after they went hunting for birds with air guns, local officials said Saturday. In a separate incident in the south of the country a security guard shot dead a member of the US-led NATO forces at a coalition military base, an Afghan official said.
After the airstrike near Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, Afghan men were seen by an AFP photographer burying their dead, shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Karzai”.
But a NATO spokesman said Afghan and Coalition forces had responded to an attack with a “precision strike” and that “initial reports indicate there were no civilian casualties”.
Civilian deaths have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and US-led NATO troops, who are winding down operations as they prepare to withdraw by the end of next year.
Mohammad Atif Shinwari, a spokesman for the Nangarhar education department told AFP that three of the victims were school children and two were brothers.
In a separate incident on Saturday, NATO said an “alleged contracted security guard” opened fire and killed a member of the US-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan before he himself was shot dead. The statement did not provide any further details, including the nationality of the perpetrator or that of the victim.