Afghans, NATO Disagree On Air Strike

Afghan officials and NATO are disagreeing over what happened in a NATO air strike in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar Province.

The governor of Kunar province said on September 8 that 16 people, including civilians and militants, were killed in a NATO air strike the previous day.

Shuja-ul-Mulk Jalala told Radio Free Afghanistan that 12 of the dead were civilians -- among them four women, four children, and four men -- while the other four men killed were presumed Taliban fighters.

Kunar police chief Abdul Habib Sayed Khil says the vehicle was hit after the driver gave Taliban fighters a lift.

But NATO spokeswoman Ann Marie Annicelli says the alliance has received no reports of civilian casualties in addition to "10 enemy forces" killed in the strike. 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the airstrike in a statement that said "attacking women and children [is] against all accepted international norms."