NATO airstrike 'kills 8' in Afghanistan

A roadside bomb killed nine civilians including women and children when it struck the vehicle they were travelling in in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, provincial police said.The civilians were driving into Khost city, capital of Khost province, when the blast hit their van, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Yaqoub Mandozai told AFP."Three women, four children and two men were killed by the roadside bomb explosion. They were all civilians," Mandozai said.

Up to 13 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in a NATO airstrike on Thursday in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, provincial police chief Mohamad Zazai said."Unfortunately eight women, four children, and one man were killed in a NATO airstrike on a residential house in Dowamanda district early this morning," Zazai said.He said four militants from the Taliban-linked Haqqani network were also killed in the strike.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber rammed his car into a U.S. convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors, officials said. The brazen attack made May the deadliest month this year for coalition forces. Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Secretary, confirmed that the two soldiers from the NATO military coalition who were killed in the bombing were Americans. He would not comment on the nationalities of the civilian contractors.

A roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan killed 15 civilians, including children, a provincial spokesman said, blaming the attack on Taliban militants.The truck was on its way from Khair Abad village to Khansheen district centre in Helmand province when it was hit by a home-made device late Friday, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP."The blast killed 15 civilians and wounded another four," he said, adding that children were among the dead.

An improvised bomb laid by insurgents killed nine civilians, including women and children, in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, according to a NATO statement.The victims died when their vehicle hit the device in the Zurmat district of Paktya province, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, with initial reports suggesting three young children may be among the dead.Colonel Rafael Torres, an ISAF spokesman, condemned the attack, saying the Taliban had "complete disregard for innocent women and children".

A NATO air strike has mistakenly killed 21 Afghan civilians and injured another 14, a spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry said Monday.The incident happened in central Uruzgan province on Sunday when three vehicles were bombed, said Zemarai Bashary."As a result of the air strike, according to initial information, 21 civilians were killed, including women and children, and another 14 were injured," he told AFP.NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was investigating the incident.

NATO announced on Sunday that it will investigate allegations that its forces killed more than 50 civilians during ongoing operations in the restive east of Afghanistan.The provincial governor of Kunar province, Fazlullah Wahidi, told AFP that military operations and airstrikes have killed 63 people in the past week, alleging most were civilians including 20 women and three elderly men.They were killed mostly in air raids by NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) against suspected rebels in Kunar, according to Wahidi.