KABUL, Afghanistan -- A U.S. airstrike killed at least a dozen Afghan security forces during intense fighting with the Taliban near the Afghan capital, officials said Tuesday.
Hundreds of armed Taliban militants made a run for the Azra district center in Logar province, about 50 miles south of Kabul, late Monday, and the fighting continued overnight, officials said. Shamshad Larawi, a spokesman for the governor, said U.S. airstrikes had been called in for support, but that because of a misunderstanding, the planes mistakenly targeted an Afghan police outpost.
Larawi played down the number of casualties, which remained unclear. Members of the provincial council said the strike killed 12 security personnel, a mix of Afghan police officers and pro-government militia members. Haji Abdul Satar, a tribal elder from Azra, said he counted 19 dead, among them 17 Afghan police officers and pro-government militia members and two civilians.
Lt. Col. Martin O'Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, confirmed that the strike had been carried out and said reports that it had killed Afghan forces were being investigated.
As security has deteriorated across Afghanistan, with Afghan forces continuing to face Taliban attacks in their defensive positions, airstrikes by both U.S. and Afghan forces have increased.
In the first six months of this year, U.S. forces dropped nearly 3,000 bombs across Afghanistan, nearly double the number for the same period last year and more than five times the number for the first half of 2016.
Civilian casualties from aerial bombardments have increased considerably as a result, the United Nations says.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan has documented 149 civilians killed and 204 injured by airstrikes in the first six months of this year, a 52 percent increase from the same period last year.
The Taliban's push for Azra began around midnight and the fighting lasted for nearly five hours before they were pushed back, said Satar, the tribal elder. Some sources suggested that a large number of Afghan forces had also been killed before the airstrike, making it a deadly night.
Hamidullah Hamid, the district governor of Azra, said there had also been civilian casualties in the fighting between the Taliban and Afghan forces before the airstrike. A Taliban rocket killed two girls ages 12 and 14, he said, while 18 other civilians were wounded.
Zer Gul, a commander of the local police whose forces came under fire, said the Taliban managed to overrun five outposts before Afghan forces retook them. The militants suffered heavy losses as well, he said, despite the United States' mistake.
"Instead of the Taliban, the Americans bombed the Afghan police," Gul said.
Separately, the Taliban attacked a military checkpoint in the western Farah province, killing four troops and wounding six, according to Mohammad Naser Mehri, the provincial governor's spokesman. The attack in Bala Buluk district started late Monday night and lasted for several hours. Mehri said Afghan airstrikes killed 19 Taliban fighters and wounded 30. "The Taliban were pushed back and the situation is under control now," he said.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks across the country since NATO and the U.S. formally ended their combat mission in 2014, and have seized control of several districts. An Islamic State affiliate has carried out dozens of deadly attacks in recent years, mainly targeting security forces and minority Shiites.
On Monday night, the Taliban attacked a police checkpoint in the eastern Ghazni province, killing four police and wounding five, said Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor. He said the battle in Jaghatu district lasted for three hours.
Separately, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed an Afghan soldier and wounded three troops and a civilian on Sunday in the eastern city of Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar.
Information for this article was contributed by Mujib Mashal and Farooq Jan Mangal of The New York Times; and by Amir Shah and Maamoun Youssef of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/08/2018