Afghanistan Times
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AT-KABUL: Seven civilians were killed and three more were injured after Taliban fighters fired rocket smashed a house in southern Ghazni province Friday morning, official sources told Afghanistan Times.
The seven killed civilians are members of the same family and include a woman and six children. Another three minors from the same family were also injured, Aref Noori, a spokesman for Ghazni governor told the daily who added the incident happened Friday morning in Qara-Baghi village, a neighborhood of Ghazni city.
“The armed militants who were under attack by security forces, to avert the focus of the operations, intentionally fired a rocket that hit a house in which six innocent children and a woman were killed and three other children were injured” Noori said.
The injured were evacuated soon to the provincial hospital and are under treatment he said.
Ghazni police press office, who also confirmed the incident by Taliban, said that those militants who were behind the tragedy were killed by society forces.
“Three militants who had fired the rocket from a nearby area were identified and killed by our security forces” Ghazni police press office said, adding the rocket launcher and two rifles were also seized from the area from where the rocket was fired on houses.
“Every time when we start clearance operations to clear the areas, the militants who can’t resist against our forces, create a tragedy, intentionally firing rockets on civilians, a usual tactic by militants to avert the focus of the military operations and to create chaos in the area” the press office told the daily.
Other hand, a member of Ghazni Provincial Council, Khaliqdad Akbari, blamed the rocket was fried by security forces, he said this based on his information from the area.
But Defense Ministry “completely” rejected the claim and said the rocket was fried by militants, and those who were behind the attack were killed by the Afghan security forces shortly after the attack.
“The rocket was fired by enemy, and our forces killed those fighters who committed this crime” Muhammad Radmanish the Deputy spokesman for the Ministry told the daily.
Other hand Taliban claimed the casualties were caused as result of the bombardment of the US forces in support of the Afghan troops.
Taliban claimed the airstrikes were carried out at 3:00pm, a claim which contradicting accounts of locals, security officials and provincial council members, all of whom confirmed to the daily that the incident was happened at the morning at around 10:00am.
However, the US forces press office in Kabul rejected Taliban claim and said US troops were not involved in the incident.
