5 Afghan soldiers killed, 8 hurt by NATO airstrike

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — An early morning NATO airstrike in Afghanistan’s eastern Logar province killed five Afghan soldiers Thursday, defense ministry officials said. The coalition said the deaths were an accident and expressed its condolences.

NATO said the Afghan soldiers were “accidentally killed,” without specifying whether it was the result of an airstrike.

Unusually reticent, Afghan President Hamid Karzai did not immediately condemn the international troops, telling reporters during a state visit to Sri Lanka that the incident is being investigated.

“This attack, NATO has admitted to me they did it mistakenly. We will investigate the issue and then speak about it,” Karzai said. He added that he would speak much differently, presumably in harsher tones, if he were addressing reporters in his own country.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said the strike occurred in the province’s Chakh district, and that eight Afghan National Army troops were also wounded in the incident. The ministry’s helicop- ters ferried the wounded to Kabul, he said.

Azimi said an investigation was underway and that authorities “were saddened by the incident.”

A spokeswoman for the international forces in Afghanistan, Maj. Cathleen Snow, described the killings as an “unfortunate incident” during an operation in the country’s east. She said an investigation was being conducted to determine the circumstances that led to the deaths.

Snow did not specify whether an airstrike was involved and did not elaborate on the operation.