Kabul, February 23: A bungled airstrike in Afghanistan has dealt Nato’s effort to woo hearts and minds the third such blow in a week, with Kabul claiming the bombing killed 27 civilians, including women and children.
Officials in the Afghan government said Nato planes attacked a convoy of three minibuses carrying 42 people, all civilians, in the mountainous province of Uruzgan on Sunday night, after mistaking them for Taliban insurgents preparing to attack Nato troops.
President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet condemned “the repeated killing of civilians by Nato forces” as “unjustifiable” and urged the coalition to “closely co-ordinate and exercise maximum care before conducting any military operation” to avoid further civilian casualties.
The mistake, the deadliest attack on civilians by Nato forces in six months, is an embarrassment for the alliance’s commander General Stanley McChrystal, whose revamped counter-insurgency campaign is built on protecting civilians rather than killing fighters.
–Agencies