Afghanistan probing whether civilians killed in anti-Taliban airstrike in Nimroz
Afghanistan says it is investigating an airstrike in the southern province of Nimroz against the Taliban militant group that allegedly killed civilians.
Afghan government officials confirmed the anti-Taliban air raid on Saturday night and said on Sunday that, based on initial information, only militants were killed in the operation.
However, locals carried the bodies of what they said were civilians killed in the strike to Zaranj, the provincial capital, in protest and to prove that the deceased were not all Taliban militants.
The government then said it was launching a probe into the incident.
“An airstrike in Khashrod district has resulted in heavy casualties for the Taliban, and investigations into allegations that civilians have been killed are ongoing,” the Afghan Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Sunday.
Reuters quoted an unnamed local government official as saying that the Afghan air force targeted a residential house where it suspected Taliban were present. He added that the 14 killed were all from one family.
In a statement, a Taliban spokesperson also denied those killed were Taliban members, insisting that they were civilians, all members of one family, including women and children.
The development came just as representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban commenced the second round of peace talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Saturday.
The Afghan government and the Taliban held the first round of the intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha on September 12 last year. The two sides took a break after striking the preliminary deal.
It marked the first time the two warring sides reached a written agreement since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
The new round of talks comes as the US has accused the Taliban of carrying out a spate of attacks that targeted government officials, civil society leaders, and journalists in Afghanistan.
The Taliban deny the allegation, saying that US forces had conducted airstrikes against its members in non-military zones. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the group would retaliate if US forces continued carrying out airstrikes in the country.
The US reached a deal of its own with the Taliban in February last year on the withdrawal of the remaining 12,000 US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban halting their attacks on international forces.
The deal was intended to result in the reduction of bloodshed, but violence continues to take a heavy toll in the country.
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