KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO took the blame on Friday for accidentally killing six civilians and wounding several others in eastern Afghanistan just a day after five Afghan soldiers died in a botched coalition airstrike.
The back-to-back incidents came as international troops are trying to gain the trust of the Afghan people and improve coordination with Afghan security forces in hopes of handing over more responsibility for security to them nearly nine years into the war.
NATO said an assessment team, comprising both coalition and Afghan forces, determined that the civilians were killed when artillery fire fell short of its target as Afghan soldiers were launching an ambush before dawn Thursday in Jani Khel district of Paktia province. A full investigation is under way.