KABUL – Afghan officials and villagers have said 18 people, including women and children, were killed in a Nato airstrike in the southeast yesterday, threatening to raise tensions with the western military as it prepares to hand over control to local forces.
Another 20 civilians were killed when a pair of suicide bombers struck within minutes of each other outside the Nato base in the southern city of Kandahar. It was the bloodiest attack in weeks since the Taliban’s spring offensive.
Separately, Nato said a helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan killing two soldiers. It said the cause of the crash was being investigated but the governor of the southeastern province of Ghazni, Musa Akbarzada, said Taliban insurgents shot down a helicopter. – (Reuters)