16 civilians reportedly killed in U.S. air strikes

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said Friday that U.S. warplanes had killed 16 civilians as they tried to flee an area in eastern Afghanistan controlled by Islamic State militants.

Hajji Saz Wali, governor of Haska Meena district in the southern part of Nangarhar province, said the victims included women and children; eight were from one family, and four others from a second family.

The victims died Thursday afternoon when the vehicles they were traveling in were hit by U.S. air strikes believed to be targeting Islamic State militants in the area, Wali said. It is not known how many were wounded, he added.

A spokesman for the U.S. military said that the Pentagon was aware of the reports but would not comment immediately.

Haska Meena district, also known as Dih Bala district, is in a rugged area close to the border with Pakistan. The neighboring Achin district was long a stronghold of the Islamic State and was where the United States dropped the so-called mother of all bombs this year, the largest conventional bomb ever deployed, on a tunnel and bunker complex where insurgents had taken refuge.

That led Islamic State fighters to seek new refuge, including in the Tora Bora cave and tunnel complex in Nangarhar, which Osama bin Laden once used as a hideout. The Islamic State fighters are believed to be relatively few, and in the Nangarhar area they fight against both the Afghan government and the more numerous Taliban insurgents.

The U.S. military has deployed Special Forces and air strikes against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan and says it has killed dozens of the group’s leaders and hundreds of fighters this year. Khalid Alokozay and Rod Nordland are New York Times writers.