LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed in U.S. air strikes in the Afghan province of Helmand, officials and residents of the area said on Wednesday, the latest casualties from a surge in air operations aimed at driving the Taliban into talks. Rahim Faiez and Robert Burns, The Associated Press 

 



KABUL -- Taliban insurgents staged a co-ordinated attack targeting a security firm in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 19 others, as the U.S. said an airstrike hours earlier in Helmand province that reportedly killed civilians was conducted by American aircraft. Attahullah Afghan, who heads the provincial council, said most of the casualties in Helmand – which included men, women and children – incurred in an airstrike that hit a house on Tuesday night during military operations in the province, a Taliban heartland. A statement from the governor's office in Helmand confirmed that 16 Taliban insurgents were killed and said that an investigation was underway to determine the number of civilian casualties. It said the militants had stockpiled ammunition in the area of the operation, which could have caused civilian casualties. "After the strike, there were secondary explosions, we assess from explosives inside the compound. Abdul Wadod Popul, a lawmaker from Helmand, also confirmed the civilian casualties. An assessment of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan published by the Pentagon’s office of the inspector general (OIG) on November 19 acknowledged that the end state of Trump’s Afghanistan strategy is to pressure the Taliban to reach a “political settlement” with Kabul. “At the time of the strike, the ground force was unaware of any civilians in or around the compound; they only knew that the Taliban was using the building as a fighting position,” a force spokeswoman said in a statement. The attacks were the latest in a series of brutal and near-daily Taliban assaults on military and police forces and government and other installations throughout the country. Afghan security forces have struggled to combat the twin insurgencies since the U.S. and NATO formally ended their combat mission in 2014, shifting to a support and counterterrorism role. Some 15,000 American forces are currently serving in Afghanistan. The Helmand fighting came as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was in Geneva, attending a two-day U.N.-backed conference that ends Wednesday and that is expected focusing on development, peace and security in the war-battered country. Wednesday's attack in eastern Kabul took place when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives and other insurgents started a gun battle with security forces in the area, Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul said the airstrike was carried out by American aircraft called in to back Afghan "special security forces" after they came under heavy Taliban fire. He had no details on the company but contact information on the website of a multinational security company called G4S is in London. Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to his report.
A series of U.S. airstrikes kills at least 30 Afghan civilians, including 16 children, in Garmsir District, Helmand Province. Additional civilians were left wounded or buried in the rubble. The target of the strikes was a suspected Taliban compound. The United States' strategy aims to push the Taliban into talks.