ISAF air raids kill 5 Afghan soldiers, incur Afghan condemnation

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) erroneously killed five soldiers of Afghan National Army (ANA) in Logar province 60 km south of Kabul on Thursday, an act has been condemned by Afghan government. The alliance -- ISAF, in a statement released here hours after the deadly strike, confirmed the incident and vowed such mistake won't be repeated in future. "We can confirm that at least five Afghan National Army (ANA) personnel were accidentally killed this morning during an operation in eastern Afghanistan," the statement of the alliance released here said. An investigation is being conducted at this time to determine the circumstances that led to this unfortunate incident, the statement further added. "Our condolences go out to the families of the ANA soldiers who lost their lives and were wounded," ISAF statement said, adding " we value the strong relationship with our Afghan partners, and we will determine what actions will be taken to ensure incidents like this do not happen again." Spokesman of Logar provincial government Deen Mohammad Darvish earlier told Xinhua that the aircrafts of ISAF dropped bombs in Bandoka area of Charkh district at 03:00 a.m. local time today, leaving five soldiers dead and seven others injured. Charkh district in Logar province has been regarded as a hotbed of Taliban militants from where the insurgents often target government interests. The deadly incident took place amid strained relations between Kabul and Washington over inking Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) to allow presence of limited number of U.S.-led alliance forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014. President Hamid Karzai who has long criticized the U.S.-led coalition forces over mistakenly harming Afghan civilians, is presently on a state visit to Sri Lanka and has yet to make comment. However, his chief spokesman Aimal Faizi, according to media reports, has condemned the deadly air raids, saying the president has ordered investigation into the murder of the Afghan national army soldiers by the NATO-led forces in Logar province.