{"id":23799,"date":"2018-11-30T12:23:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T12:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23799"},"modified":"2018-11-30T12:23:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T12:23:48","slug":"afghanistan-women-children-among-23-killed-in-us-attack-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23799","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: Women, children among 23 killed in US attack: UN"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At least 23 civilians, including women and children, were killed by an air raid carried out by the United States in southern Afghanistan<\/a> earlier this week, according to a UN investigation.<\/p>\n

“Initial findings indicate that the vast majority of the victims were women and children,” the UN mission in Afghanistan said in a report received by AFP late on Thursday, adding that at least three people were also injured in the attack.<\/p>\n

The attack occurred during a firefight between Afghan special forces working with US advisers and Taliban fighters late on Tuesday in restive Helmand province.<\/p>\n

NATO said air support was requested by security forces on the ground as the fighters deployed heavy weapons and retreated into a nearby compound.<\/p>\n

Provincial authorities had earlier said several members of a single family appeared to have been killed in the attack, with one official saying “at least 18 civilians were killed”, which could not be confirmed.<\/p>\n

NATO has said it was investigating the incident.<\/p>\n

Haji Mohammad, who lived near where the incident occurred, said the attack came after the Taliban entered a home during a battle with security forces, saying it killed several civilians inside along with nine fighters.<\/p>\n

Civilians continue to face “extreme levels of harm”, a recent UN report said, with 8,050 people killed or wounded in the January to September period this year.<\/p>\n

Violence has escalated in the past year as US and Afghan forces press ground and air offensives against the Taliban<\/a> and the armed group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL<\/a>, also known as ISIS).<\/p>\n

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The Taliban has also upped assaults on Afghan forces even as the US increased efforts to engage the fighters in peace talks.<\/p>\n

Mounting casualties<\/h2>\n

Washington is trying to find a way out of the conflict more than 17 years since the US intervention that toppled the Taliban from power.<\/p>\n

US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is spearheading efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban before Afghanistan’s presidential election, scheduled for April next year, though officials have said it could be postponed until July.<\/p>\n

A Taliban delegation met Khalilzad in Doha, the Qatari capital, in October and November to discuss ending the Afghan conflict.<\/p>\n

Khalilzad has said he is “cautiously optimistic” for an end to the conflict.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, President Ashraf Ghani announced in the Swiss city of Geneva on Wednesday that his government has appointed a 12-member team to hold talks with the Taliban<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also on Friday, at least 29 people were killed in clashes\u00a0between a pro-government militia commander and\u00a0 the Taliban in Herat province, according to provincial governor spokesman\u00a0Jelani Farhad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 23 civilians, including women and children, were killed by an air raid carried out by the United States in southern Afghanistan earlier this week, according to a UN investigation. “Initial findings indicate that the vast majority of the victims were women and children,” the UN mission in Afghanistan said in a report received…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}