‘NATO airstrike’ kills 11 Afghan Children

{{At least 11 children have reportedly been killed in a NATO airstrike in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.}}

The children were killed during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against Taliban fighters in the Shigal district of restive Kunar province bordering Pakistan late on Saturday, according to Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

Karzai “strongly condemned the ISAF air strike in Kunar that killed 11 children”, in a statement issued by his office.

“The president, while condemning the use of civilians as shields by the Taliban, denounced any kind of operations that cause civilian deaths,” the statement said.

The president has also ordered a government investigation into the killings.

There were conflicting figures of the death toll, but Karzai’s office later said 11 people were killed – all of them children – and six women were wounded.

Wasifullah Wasifi, the spokesman for the Kunar governor, confirmed the attack to Al Jazeera.

“We confirm a raid done by Afghanistan’s intelligence service in the district of Shigal. In this raid, the security forces killed 20 Taliban in which 10 of them are very senior Taliban members,” he told Al Jazeera.

The interior ministry said in a statement the attack by coalition forces killed six Taliban including two senior commanders.

{Aljazeera}