KABUL — NATO forces said Thursday that they had unwittingly killed several women and children a day earlier during an early-morning air attack against militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan.
The U.S.-led coalition also said it was investigating separate reports of civilian deaths in a nearby province.
The fatal airstrike Wednesday in Khost province, which Afghan officials say killed eight children and two women, ignited outrage in neighboring villages. In Khost, hundreds of angry villagers blocked the main road to the capital and urged the Afghan government to investigate and punish those responsible.
Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said the women and children killed in Wednesday’s airstrike in Khost were family members of militants who had been close by when the fighters attacked a combined Afghan-NATO patrol. The New York Times
