Coalition airstrike kills about 50 Taliban rebels

US-led coalition aircraft killed about 50 suspected Taliban rebels in an airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said today.

Local residents claimed several civilians had also been killed and wounded.

The attack occurred late yesterday and early today on the village of Azizi in Panjwayi district, Kandahar province, said coalition spokesman, Maj. Scott Lundy.

“It was against a known Taliban stronghold and we believe it resulted in about 50 Taliban killed,” he said.

Lundy said the coalition was investigating whether some civilians may also have been hit by the bombing.

More than a dozen villagers, many of them wounded, fled from the area to the main southern city of Kandahar early today, claiming scores of civilians had been killed.

At the city’s Mirwaise Hospital, one man, with blood smeared over his clothes and turban, said insurgents had been hiding in an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, in the village after fierce fighting in recent days.

“Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taliban ran from there and into people’s homes. Then those homes were bombed,” said Haji Ikhlaf, 40. “I saw 35 to 40 dead Taliban and about 50 dead or wounded civilians.”

Another survivor from the village, Zurmina Bibi, who was cradling her wounded eight-month-old baby, said about 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children.