KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. and Afghan forces came under fire on Thursday while targeting senior Taliban commanders during a joint operation in northern Kunduz province, calling in airstrikes during an assault that killed 26 civilians, three local troops and two American service members, NATO and local officials said. KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. airstrikes launched after two American servicemembers were killed in in raid in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province claimed the lives of dozens of civilians, including women and children, officials said Thursday. “The latest figures showed that 31 civilians lost their lives and 17 others injured during the Thursday’s military operation and subsequent air raids conducted by foreign forces on outskirts of Kunduz city,” it said in a statement. The servicemembers were assisting Afghan commandos during a raid in the Buze Kandahari suburb of Kunduz city on Wednesday night when they came under insurgent fire, Kunduz police spokesman Hijratullah Akbari said. Kunduz official Mohammad Yousf Ayoubi and parliament member Malim Chari both also told the AP that civilians were killed in the fighting, though they had few details Dr. Mohammad Naim Mangal, the director of a Kunduz hospital, said his facility received the bodies of a dead man and a child and treated 30 people, including children, wounded in the fighting. Taliban fighters briefly overran the city of Kunduz, the provincial capital with the same name, in early October, a show of strength by the insurgents that also highlighted the troubles facing local Afghan forces 15 years after the U.S.-led invasion of the country. The office of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement Thursday that the president was shocked by the news of the civilian deaths and had “directed the security and defense officials and Kunduz governor to take all necessary steps during operations to prevent civilian casualties.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was “deeply saddened” by the U.S. casualties. The U.S. government-monitoring agency in its quarterly report released earlier this week revealed that in the first eight months of 2016, Afghan forces suffered more than 5,500 deaths, while around 10,000 were wounded. Two U.S. soldiers were among those killed and two were wounded when they came under enemy fire in Kunduz province, Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Thursday.
Battle of Boz Qandahari: Two United States military personnel, four Afghan Commandos, and 30 civilians are killed in clashes with the Taliban in Kunduz province, Afghanistan.