A U.S. led airstrike is allegedly responsible for the deaths of dozens of Afghani civilians.
June 7, 2012- Wednesday was the deadliest day of 2012 for Afghanistan, as 22 civilians lost their lives and 50 more were wounded in two separate suicide bombings. The bombings took place in Kandahar a province in the southern region of the country. In Logar province, in eastern Afghanistan a report said that as many as 18 civilians had been killed from a U.S. led airstrike.
Officials from the coalition disputed the reports of the civilian casualties in its airstrike that took place in the predawn hours of Wednesday. The strike was ordered after a coalition force had come under fire by insurgents when attempting to apprehend a leader of the Taliban in the Baraki Barak district. A provincial official from Logar alleged that a number of the victims were very young children. Those accounts were near impossible to confirm due to the airstrike’s location.
A spokesman for the coalition forces said it was his understanding that no civilians had been killed in the airstrike, but announced that a full investigation would take place. Coalition forces had raided a home where a Taliban meeting was said to be taking place in the early morning hours of Wednesday. During the raid, three American soldiers and three soldiers from Afghanistan were wounded when the insurgents exchanged gunfire with American and coalition forces.
Even without the civilian deaths in Logar confirmed, the day was still the bloodiest in Afghanistan since December of last year when a suicide bomber in Kabul killed 84 civilians and wounded over 200.
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