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| Afghanistan |
| NATO: Afghanistan bombing kills 12 insurgents |
| 2008-03-20 |
| NATO said that it killed about 12 insurgents in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan, denying accusations from two Afghan lawmakers that civilians were among the dead. The lawmakers, Dad Mohammad Khan and Mir Wali Khan, were in the capital, Kabul, at the time of the strike and relied on reports from local Afghans about the airstrikes in the southern Helmand province. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said Tuesday that the only people killed in the previous day's airstrike were militants who had fired on alliance troops. "The air attack took place in an isolated area where there was no housing or civilian activity," NATO said. "There was no evidence of civilian casualties, which would have been clearly seen by ISAF, and there have been no reports by hospitals in the region of any injuries, or requests for medical aid received." Insurgents and some Afghan civilians hostile to the presence of foreign troops sometimes exaggerate accounts of civilian deaths caused by international forces, or make up claims altogether. Independent verification of battlefield causalities is difficult because the areas are remote and dangerous for travel. |
| Posted by:Fred |