Probe ordered into reports of strike killing Afghan family

KABUL, Afghanistan — Both President Hamid Karzai and NATO commanders ordered an investigation Sunday into reports that a family of eight had been killed in a coalition airstrike in eastern Afghanistan.

NATO and Afghan provincial government officials gave different accounts of the episode. The casualties took place in eastern Paktia province Saturday night when the family’s home was hit by a bomb, said Rohullah Samoon, a spokesman for the governor of Paktia. Six children were killed, four boys and two girls, as well as their mother and father, whose name was Safiullah. They lived in Sar Khilo village in the remote Gerdi Seri district, he said, adding that the circumstances of the bombing were not clear but that the operation was carried out without coordination with Afghan security forces.

However, a spokesman for the Afghan National Army in Paktia, Col. Fazli Khuda, said it was a joint operation to target insurgent fighters from the Haqqani faction who operate there. Sar Khilo is a remote, mountainous area on the border between Paktia and Khost province and is dominated by the Zadran tribe, which is the same tribe as the Haqqani clan.

The U.S.-led coalition on Sunday disputed the reports.

A senior NATO official said so far there is no evidence of any civilian casualties. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

The coalition said it was working to find out more about allegations that civilians were killed in the operation.

The Haqqanis, the insurgent group dominant in southeastern Afghanistan, are believed to be behind some of the bloodiest and most audacious attacks that have taken place in Afghanistan in the past three years, including the 19-hour long attack on the U.S. Embassy in September and more recent multiple attacks in Kabul in April that targeted the embassy neighborhood as well as the Parliament and an area near a NATO camp.

According to the NATO account, on Saturday evening a combined NATO and Afghan force on a ground patrol came under heavy attack by more than 20 insurgents, said Maj. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “They were attacked by a large group of insurgents in southern Paktia and they returned fire and requested close air support and received it,” he said. “We are trying to determine whether the mission has any direct correlation to the claims of civilian casualties.”

Although no NATO soldiers were killed in the fighting in Paktia, seven coalition soldiers were killed over the weekend in different episodes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to a NATO spokesman. The nationalities of the soldiers were not released pending notification of family members.

MORE NATO DEATHS

Separately, NATO reported that three coalition servicemen were killed Sunday in eastern Afghanistan - two during an insurgent attack and one from a roadside bombing.

Four others, including a British soldier, were killed in the south on Saturday, bringing to 169 the number of NATO deaths in Afghanistan so far this year.

The British Ministry of Defense said the soldier was killed in an explosion in the Nahr-e Saraj region of southern Helmand province.

The ministry said in a statement Sunday that the soldier was from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Welsh.

Task Force Helmand spokesman Maj. Ian Lawrence said the soldier was killed Saturday when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device in the Nahre Saraj District of Helmand province.

The death brings to 415 the number of British forces who have been killed while serving in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001.

The nationalities of the other three killed have not been disclosed.

Elsewhere Sunday, two civilians were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Marjah district of Helmand province in the south, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said.

Before this weekend, 33 NATO servicemen had been killed in Afghanistan in May, but with the weekend’s losses and the death of a NATO troop member on Friday, the monthly death toll has risen to 41. That is still sharply lower than coalition casualties last May and continues a trend of lower coalition casualties over the past two months as the allied countries increasingly hand over responsibility for security to Afghan forces and some nations, like France, prepare to leave ahead of schedule.

“STILL HAVE A FIGHT”

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Sunday defended the Obama administration’s plans to wind down the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan, saying the U.S. is on “the right track.”

“We still have a fight on our hands,” Panetta said Sunday on ABC’s This Week.

“The American people need to know that. The world needs to know that ... but we’re on the right track,” he added.

Last week, NATO allies affirmed a plan to end combat operations inside Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Republicans, including Mitt Romney, have criticized President Barack Obama’s insistence on setting a firm timetable for the war because they say it shows a lack of commitment to the region and encourages enemy fighters to wait out a U.S. departure.

Panetta said critics of the plan should be mindful that the timetable has been embraced by some 50 allied nations.

Panetta also reiterated his criticism of the conviction of a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find and kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, calling the lengthy prison sentence handed to Dr. Shakil Afridi “disturbing.”

“It is so difficult to understand and it’s so disturbing that they would sentence this doctor to 33 years for helping in the search for the most notorious terrorist in our times,” Panetta said. “This doctor was not working against Pakistan.”

Panetta called the U.S. relationship with Pakistan “one of the most complicated we’ve had.” Information for this article was contributed by Alissa J. Rubin and Rod Nordland of The New York Times; and by Rahim Faiez and Mirwais Khan of The Associated Press.