U.S. air strike kills 14 people in same family

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Fourteen members of a family, including three small children, were killed in northern Afghanistan when a U.S. air strike destroyed their home, several Afghan officials confirmed Friday.

In what has become a familiar litany, particularly in Taliban-dominated Kunduz province, Afghan and U.S. officials had initially denied that any civilians had been killed in the strike Thursday, claiming the victims were Taliban fighters.

Then 11 bodies belonging to women and children appeared at the hospital in Kunduz City, about 4 miles from the site of the attack in Chardara district. The Taliban do not have women fighters and the children were very young.

Soon after the attack, district officials described the incident as an air strike that went wrong, in which only civilians were killed.

“There were 12 killed and one wounded by American jets in Chardara district, and all casualties are civilians,” said Abdul Karim, the local police chief. Two other children were later counted as dead because they were known to have been in the house, although their remains could not be found in the rubble, residents and relatives said.

A local resident, Rahimullah, 26, drove the tractor used to excavate the bombed house and pull out the bodies.

“I don’t know why they attack civilians,” he said. “I lost my nephews, Farid and Zainullah.” (Rahimullah uses only one name, which is common in Afghanistan).

Residents and local officials said 20 people had lived in the house, all members of an extended family. Of the 14 family members killed, eight were women and three children, officials said. Two other children from the family were hospitalized with serious wounds, a girl, 3; and a boy, 5.

Three other children escaped from the house when the attack began, and one man, the father of the wounded children, was not home at the time of the attack.

Farther from the scene, however, military officials dismissed the possibility of civilian fatalities.

The executive officer of an Afghan army unit on the front line in Chardara did not mince words.

“It is propaganda by the enemy,” Maj. Saifuddin Azizi of the 10th commando battalion, said. “We deny there were any civilian casualties. Foreign troops are our friends and we don’t target civilians.”

Later, the Ministry of Defense circulated a statement acknowledging that civilians had been killed and wounded in the attack, without giving details.

The U.S. military, however, maintained that there had been no civilians at the site.