A government airstrike killed at least 14 people in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, many of them women and children, witnesses said Thursday.
KABUL, Afghanistan — A government airstrike killed at least 14 people in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, many of them women and children, witnesses said Thursday. Hundreds of people had gathered in Herat’s Adraskan district to welcome home a former Taliban fighter freed from jail when aircraft pounded the gathering, said Noor Rahmati, a witness who lost three members of his family in the airstrike. Government officials said Thursday the airstrike a day earlier was being investigated. Ghulam Nabi had been released as part of a prisoner exchange aimed at moving negotiations between the government and the Taliban forward, a second and critical phase of a peace deal between the U. S. and Taliban. District elders and well wishers had arrived to welcome Nabi when the attack began, the witnesses said. Nabi’s 9-year-old son was apparently wounded in the attack. U. S. Peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted a condemnation of the violence and welcomed the government investigation.
