At least 35 guests at a wedding party, including children, were killed during a raid by Afghan forces on a nearby militant hideout, local officials have said.
The Afghan defence ministry said the raid in Helmand province struck a militant base being used to train suicide bombers. The operation killed 14 Taliban fighters and six foreigners during “air strikes conducted by the Afghan special forces”, the provincial governor said.
Yet local officials said dozens of civilians had been killed in the raid, which comes as both the Taliban and Nato-backed Afghan forces have stepped up operations after the collapse of negotiations.
The defence ministry and the local governor both said they would investigate the claims of civilian deaths and share their results.
United Nations figures released in July estimated Afghan forces and their international military-backers had killed more civilians in the first half of 2019 than the Taliban and other militants.
The latest UN figures for civilian deaths during the war said at total of 717 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2019 by pro-government forces, including 403 killed by Afghan forces and another 314 by international forces. The figure is an increase of nearly a third since the first half of 2018.
Afghan officials gave confused reports of the attack in Musa Qala district, which was patrolled by British troops from 2006 to 2010.
A senior Afghan Defence Ministry official told Reuters the raid was against “a foreign terrorist group actively engaged in organising terrorist attacks”.
“During the operation, a large warehouse of the terrorists’ supplies and equipment was also demolished,” the official said.
A second Afghan Defence Ministry official said a foreign militant detonated a suicide vest that killed him and others around him, including a woman.
“ The compound was being used to train men and women who were willing to become suicide bombers, we raided it. We are aware that civilians were injured in the attack,” he said.
A senior US defence official in Afghanistan said the operation was aimed against al Qaeda fighters but did not give any details about civilian casualties.