KABUL, Afghanistan – An airstrike carried out by foreign aircraft may have mistakenly killed at least 11 police in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Monday.
The incident, which involved Afghan counternarcotics police, took place on Sunday night, Helmand provincial governor spokesman Omar Zwak told Stars and Stripes. The deputy interior minister for counternarcotics, Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, told The New York Times that 11 officers from his agency had been killed and four wounded in an airstrike on a convoy in the Garmsir District of Helmand Province.
Col. Brian Tribus, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said there were no U.S. or NATO airstrikes in Helmand on Sunday, but there was one in Kandahar to "protect the force." The airstrike in Kandahar was in Maiwand district, which borders Helmand province.
Tribus said U.S. officials are not investigating whether that strike killed Afghan forces.
“We are sure that the strike U.S. forces carried out Sunday night was within the borders of Maiwand district of Kandahar and eliminated threats to the force,” he said.
The New York Times reported that the police convoy was in the middle of an operation to arrest drug smugglers. The newspaper cited a police official in Garmsir District who said the narcotics agents had disguised themselves as Taliban, who often work with drug smugglers. The police official put the death toll at 15 officers.
U.S. aircraft have mistakenly killed Afghan security forces in the past. At least eight Afghan soldiers were killed when an American helicopter opened fire on their position in Logar province in July.
As Afghan forces faced repeated Taliban offensives in recent months, American aircraft increased their operations, especially in southern Afghanistan. U.S. aircraft have dropped bombs or deployed other weapons during more than 200 sorties so far this year, despite the declared end of combat operations for international troops.
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