A Family of 14 Dies in an Airstrike. U.S. Officials Deny They Were Civilians.
Source: NY Times
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Fourteen members of a family, including three small children, were killed in northern Afghanistan when an American airstrike destroyed their home, several Afghan officials confirmed on Friday ... American officials had initially denied that any civilians had been killed in the strike on Thursday, claiming the victims were Taliban fighters.
Residents and local officials said 20 people had lived in the house, all members of an extended family. Of the 14 family members killed, eight were women and three children, officials said. Two other children from the family were hospitalized with serious wounds, a girl, 3; and a boy, 5.
The American military, however, maintained that there had been no civilians at the site.
The executive officer of an Afghan Army unit on the front line in Chardara did not mince words. “It is propaganda by the enemy,” the officer, Maj. Saifuddin Azizi of the 10th commando battalion, said.“We deny there were any civilian casualties.”
By late Thursday, however, the provincial authorities in Kunduz had begun to change their accounts, as angry relatives besieged their offices. Villagers shared cellphone photographs of the bomb site and the victims, and witnesses spoke out. “There wasn’t a single armed person in those homes,” said Hajji Sherin Agha, a local elder.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/world/asia/afghanistan-us-civilian-casualties.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld
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