NATO strike kills five Afghan soldiers

A NATO airstrike in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Logar has killed five Afghan National Army soldiers and wounded 17 others.

A Logar provincial official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the strike was carried out at around 2:00 a.m. local time on Thursday.

He said government officials were in meetings to decide their response and to conduct a further investigation into the incident.

There was no immediate response from NATO to requests for comment.

Ties between Kabul and Washington are already tense over the killing of Afghan civilians by US soldiers. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the United States and its Western allies launched the war in Afghanistan for their own interests.

“Afghans died in a war that’s not ours,” Karzai said in an interview with the Washington Post published on March 2, adding that the 12-year-old war was “for the US security and for the Western interest.”

The Afghan president also urged the United States to end air raids in Afghanistan, saying that, instead of militants, civilians are being killed in these airstrikes.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity remains across the country.