Death toll from US drone strikes in eastern Afghanistan jumps to 75

Death toll from a series of strikes carried out by US drones in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar has climbed to more than six dozen, Press TV reports.

Local authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that six drone attacks struck various districts of the province, late on Tuesday, leaving at least 75 people.

The assaults targeted militants and that those killed in the airstrikes were members of the Taliban and Takfiri ISIL terrorist groups, the sources said. Neither Taliban nor the ISIL militants have made any comments on the airstrikes.

Afghan officials have dispatched several teams of investigators to the sites of the aerial attacks to look into the circumstances surrounding the incidents.

An airstrike in the Baraki Barak district of Afghanistan’s eastern province of Logar reportedly killed five people on August 1.

On July 29, two US drones conducted two airstrikes in the Haska Mina district of Nangarhar Province, which lies on the border with Pakistan, killing at least 20 people.

The United States has been conducting targeted killings through remotely-controlled armed drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia as well as Yemen.

Washington says that the airstrikes target al-Qaeda militants and other extremists, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have in most cases been the victims of the attacks.