A NATO helicopter strike targeting missile-launching Taliban militants killed four civilians in western Afghanistan, an Afghan official said on Tuesday. NATO said they were investigating the attack.
The attack in western Herat province comes as civilian casualties from NATO attacks remain a contentious issue across the country as international troops prepare to withdraw by the end of this year. Almost 200 people protested against NATO in Herat on Tuesday, carrying the bodies of the dead civilians into the provincial capital and demanding an investigation.
The strike happened on Monday night in the province’s Shindan district, said Raouf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial chief of police. He said Taliban militants launched a missile at an airport nearby, drawing the NATO helicopter’s fire. He said the NATO attack killed two men, one woman and a child.
In a statement, NATO said it was aware of the attack and was investigating, without elaborating.
NATO “takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously, and is assessing the facts surrounding this incident,” it said.
Civilians increasingly find themselves under fire as the 2001 U.S.-led war draws to a close, as Afghan forces take the lead in operations targeting the Taliban. The civilian death toll in the war in Afghanistan rose 17 percent for the first half of this year, the United Nations reported in July. The U.N. said 1,564 civilians were killed from January through June, compared with 1,342 in the first six months of 2013. It blamed
Insurgents were responsible for 74 percent of the casualties, the U.N. said, while pro-government forces were responsible for 9 percent, government forces 8 percent and foreign troops just 1 percent. The rest could not be attributed to any group.
Outgoing President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly clashed with NATO over civilian casualties.
