Coalition air strike kills at least 2 dozen Taliban

KABUL — A coalition air strike killed more than 20 Taliban insurgents after they had gathered to oversee a public execution in northeastern Afghanistan on Saturday, Afghan officials said.

Some Afghan officials in Kunar province, where the attack took place, put the death toll much higher, at 40 to 50. NATO said only that “at least two dozen” insurgents were killed after a joint Afghan-NATO ground operation observed a large gathering of armed men and called in an air strike.

After the attack, Afghan and NATO officials inspected the site and said no civilians were killed by the bombing, the coalition said.

“They have confirmed there were no civilians,” said Maj. Martyn Crighton, a NATO spokesman in Kabul.

The bombing took place in the Chapa Dara district of Kunar province, a remote area close to the border with Pakistan. According to local residents and Najibullah, the police chief of the Chapa Dara district, who like many Afghans uses only one name, the insurgents had gathered after a quarrel between two families resulted in the death of one person. The victim’s relatives surrounded those they said were responsible for the death and called in the Taliban to administer justice, local residents and officials said.

The Taliban planned to punish the offenders, Najibullah said. He estimated that more than 50 insurgents were killed in the air strike and said it was not clear whether any civilians were among the dead.

Civilian casualties have caused tensions with the Afghan government, and the coalition has issued a dozen or more statements in recent weeks accusing the Taliban of civilian carnage.

A U.N. report found 1,145 civilians were killed and 1,954 others injured during the first half of the year, 80 percent of them by militants.