A flurry of Afghan airstrikes against the Miwand District in Kandahar Province has killed at least 36 people. The Afghan army issued a statement saying all of the slain were Taliban insurgents.
This was the largest of several Afghan airstrikes over the past 24
hours. Attacks elsewhere killed a number of others. Six were killed in
Faryab Province, and another 13 were killed in Paktia Province.
The Afghan statements are offering few details, which is common for
their early reporting of such strikes. Casualties are emphasized, and
everyone is declared a militant, though it is common for civilians to
come forward later reporting they were killed in the course of the
attacks.
The Taliban hasn’t commented on any of these deaths, nor on reports that the Afghan military had captured a single unnamed Taliban alive in the course of all of these operations.
“militant” is of course newspeak for anybody killed by one of our bombs.