Just a day after reports emerged that a US air strike against a wedding party in Kandahar earlier in the week killed at least 40 civilians, another US strike in Badghis Province killed at least another 20 people, with at least seven of them reportedly civilians. Provincial Council head Dawlat Osmani said his information suggests that as many as 30 civilians had been killed. The US military also indicated in a statement they are aware of “possible civilian casualties” during the strike, and military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian said they apologize to the families if any of those killed were innocent.

As violence in Afghanistan soars, the US has increasingly relied on air strikes in their conflicts, causing an ever-growing number of civilian casualties. US military spokesman Colonel Julian lauded the air strikes as “devastating” to the Taliban, and accused them of trying to intentionally get civilians killed in hope of stopping the strikes.

The strikes have killed several hundred Afghan civilians this year and continue unbated however, so if this is all some insidious Taliban plot to prevent the US from using air strikes, they appear to have sorely overestimated the US military’s reluctance to kill large numbers of innocent civilians.

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