Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation

killed six civilians

KABUL  The Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan. NATO disputed the allegation saying only militants died.International forces have pledged to avoid civilian deaths in recent months, but insurgents often live among villagers making them vulnerable during nighttime raids.

Seven insurgents were killed and four detained after the attack in Laghman province on a compound of a militant leader responsible for directing several suicide strikes in the region, NATO said in a statement.
Afghan and international forces came under fire as they assaulted the compound, sparking a gunbattle, it said.

A statement issued by the presidential palace said six civilians were killed during the firefight, including one woman. Provincial officials said 12 people were killed in the clash outside the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam, some of them civilians, but did not specify a number.

However, NATO spokeswoman Capt. Jane Campbell said there were “no operational reports to substantiate those claims of harming civilians, including women and children during this operation.”

About 400 people marched on Mehtar Lam to protest the deaths, carrying bodies of some of the dead, said provincial government spokesman Sayed Ahmad Safi.Groups of men laid the blanket-wrapped bodies on wooden cots, which they hoisted above them as they walked, footage from Associated Press Television showed.

“Whoever came onto the roof of their home, they killed them. Some were killed inside their houses,” said Ismail, a villager who only gave one name and said he lost seven members of his family. “All those killed were innocent villagers, farmers. The Americans even killed our women.”The protest turned violent as the demonstrators tried to enter the city. They clashed with police and one protester was killed, Safi said.

a fatal Afghan airstrike ordered by German forces

Former German Defense Minister and current Labor Minister Franz Josef Jung has resigned over a fatal Afghan airstrike ordered by German forces, the Labor Ministry said Friday.It comes the day after the head of the German army stepped down over the same incident.The resignation of Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the army’s chief of staff, came after Germany’s Bild newspaper reported he knew civilians could be killed when the Sept. 4 airstrike was ordered.The attack in the northern province of Kunduz killed at least 90 people, according to reports at the time. Bild said 142 people were killed. Local Afghan officials said at least half of the dead were civilians, and NATO acknowledged soon afterward that civilians had been killed.

NATO said the death toll is contained in a classified report about the incident that is now in the hands of German authorities.The German commander in the area called in the strike after Afghans tried to siphon fuel from two tankers hijacked by the Taliban a day earlier. The fuel had been earmarked for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).Bild said it had access to confidential documents and it posted a video of the airstrike on its Web site. It said German Col. Georg Klein was not able to rule out the possibility of civilian victims before he ordered the strike.

The newspaper said a report dated Sept. 6 — two days after the strike — made clear that it was impossible for Klein to verify information his informant had provided before he called in the airstrike.Jung said Friday he was taking responsibility for miscommunication following the incident.Bild reported that for days after the incident, Jung — who was then defense minister — repeated that there had been no civilian victims. That was despite Jung having videos and documents that proved the defense ministry knew about civilian victims and also had insufficient information before the strike was ordered, Bild said.

“Although this information painted a completely different picture of events, Minister Jung repeated in newspaper interviews and before Parliament, again and again, that ‘terrorist Taliban exclusively’ had been hit, and that the local commander had had ‘clear information’ that the people by the tankers were exclusively insurgents,” Bild reported.