NATO airstrike kills civilians in Afghanistan

By Associated Press

Saturday 26 March 2011

NATO says that an airstrike on two vehicles initially believed to be carrying Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan has accidentally killed an unspecified number of civilians.

The international alliance says it is investigating the strike, which occurred yesterday in the Naw Zad district of Helmand province.



It says that the airstrike followed intelligence suggesting a Taliban leader and his associates were in the vehicles.



NATO said today that coalition troops later found bodies of civilians in the wreckage.



NATO has not released the number of dead.



A UN report has said that at least 2,777 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2010, with most of the deaths blamed on the insurgency.

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