Airstrike on rebel stronghold kills up to 80 Taliban

US-LED coalition aircraft killed up to 80 suspected Taliban militants in a night airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said yesterday.

The local governor said 16 civilians also died.

A coalition statement said it had confirmed 20 Taliban killed in the attack on the village of Azizi in Kandahar province yesterday, while there were “an unconfirmed 60 additional Taliban casualties”.

US commander Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry said the military was “looking into” whether some civilians had also died.

According to figures from coalition and Afghan officials, the new deaths brought the toll of militants, Afghan forces and coalition soldiers and civilians killed to 285 since last Wednesday, when a storm of violence broke out in the south — among the deadliest combat in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said beside the 16 civilians killed in the airstrike, another 16 had been wounded and taken to hospitals in Kandahar city, a former Taliban stronghold.

“These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban are hiding in homes,” he said. “I urge people not to give shelter to the Taliban.”

US military spokesman Colonel Tom Collins said: “It’s common that the enemy fights in close to civilians as a means to protect its own forces.

“We targeted a Taliban compound and we’re certain we hit the right target,” he said.

Another spokesperson, Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence, said the estimate of 80 militants killed was based on “an educated assessment of the area”, but only 20 had been confirmed.