Kabul, August 07: In the latest incident of civilian deaths at the hand of foreign forces in Afghanistan, a US-led air raid has killed at least five farmers in the country’s troubled south.
District police chief Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi said the airstrike killed five farmers as they moved produce from rural Zhari to the city of Kandahar.
“The farmers were loading cucumbers on a truck when the American forces hit them from their aircraft.”
A US military spokeswoman in Kabul also confirmed the attack, but said the men were militants spotted loading weapons on a truck.
The district governor said that he had gone to the scene and saw no ammunition.
However, the US military sources later said they were probing the lethal incident, which outraged people across Afghanistan.
The incident comes after an overnight US-led airstrike killed four members of a family, including three children, in Kandahar province on Wednesday.
Civilians have been the main victims of violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the troubled southern and eastern provinces.
The number of Afghan civilians killed either in US-led airstrikes or Taliban attacks has surpassed 1,000 in the first half of 2009, according to the UN.
—-Agencies