The United Nations confirmed Monday that ten children were among at least 13 civilians killed by a recent American military airstrike in northern Afghanistan.

The deadly attack occurred early Saturday near the capital city of volatile Kunduz province where Afghan and U.S. forces were conducting a joint operation against Taliban insurgents.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) lamented the deaths while releasing preliminary findings of its investigation into the incident. It said work is ongoing to verify other reports of civilian casualties that occurred around the time of the airstrike.

“The Mission expresses serious concern that initial fact-finding indicates that 10 of those killed were children, part of the same extended family whom were displaced by fighting elsewhere in the country,” said UNAMA.

Officials and residents around the conflict zone said that insurgents had strongly resisted the joint Afghan-U.S. military raid in the Taliban-held Telawka neighborhood. The ensuing clashes killed two American soldiers and several local commando forces, prompting the U.S. military to launch the airstrike in support of forces on the ground.

U.S. officials confirmed the killing of two service members and carrying out an airstrike in the area, accusing the Taliban of using civilian areas as hideouts.

UNAMA urged parties involved in the airstrike to conduct their own enquiries into the incident and take immediate steps to safeguard civilians from harm. “Parties are urged to publish results of their findings, as well as provide appropriate compensation to victims.”

Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan. The armed conflict last year killed more than 3,800 civilians, including 927 children, the highest number of civilian deaths recorded in the past ten years, according to UNAMA.

The mission documented a sharp increase in civilian casualties in 2018 from aerial and search operations conducted by Afghan and U.S. militaries, blaming pro-government forces for an unprecedented 24 percent overall increase in civilian casualties.

Battlefield hostilities in Afghanistan have sharply increased with the advent of spring. The Taliban has inflicted heavy casualties on government forces in several provinces over the past few days.

The deadliest of the attacks occurred early Saturday in Sangin district of the southern Helmand province, killing at least 65 Afghan forces, including 48 military personnel.

The intensification in the war comes as Taliban and U.S. officials are due to reconvene soon to build on the progress they have achieved in recent negotiations to try to find a political resolution of the war. </s> KABUL (Reuters) - Ten children, part of the same extended family, were killed by a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan, along with three adult civilians, the United Nations said on Monday.

The air strike early on Saturday was part of a battle between the Taliban and combined Afghan and U.S. forces that lasted about 30 hours in Kunduz, a northern province where the Taliban insurgency is strong.

The children and their family had been displaced by fighting elsewhere in the country, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said, releasing its preliminary findings about the incident. UNAMA said in a statement that it is verifying that all 13 civilian casualties occurred around the time of the air strike.

Three other civilians were wounded. The incident happened in the Telawka neighborhood near Kunduz city.

Sgt. Debra Richardson, spokeswoman for the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, confirmed that U.S. forces carried out an air strike, but she said on Monday that the mission still had not confirmed that it had caused civilian casualties.

She said the mission aims to prevent civilian casualties, while the Taliban intentionally hides among civilians.

A record number of Afghan civilians were killed last year as aerial attacks and suicide bombings increased, the United Nations said in a February report. Child casualties from air strikes have increased every year since 2014.

Fighting has accelerated during a period of recurring talks between U.S. and Taliban officials aimed at ending Afghanistan’s 17-year war. </s> Ten children, part of the same extended family, were killed by a US air strike in Afghanistan, along with three adult civilians, the United Nations said on Monday.

The air strike early on Saturday was part of a battle between the Taliban and combined Afghan and US forces that lasted about 30 hours in Kunduz, a northern province where the Taliban is strong.

The children and their family had been displaced by fighting elsewhere in the country, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in releasing its preliminary findings about the incident. UNAMA said in a statement that it is verifying that all 13 civilian casualties occurred around the time of the air strike.

Three other civilians were injured. The incident happened in the Telawka neighbourhood near Kunduz city.

Sgt. Debra Richardson, spokeswoman for the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, confirmed on Sunday that US forces carried out the air strike. She said the mission aims to prevent civilian casualties, while the Taliban intentionally hides among civilians.

A record number of Afghan civilians were killed last year as aerial attacks and suicide bombings increased, the United Nations said in a February report. Child casualties from air strikes have increased every year since 2014.

Fighting has accelerated during a period of recurring talks between U.S. and Taliban officials aimed at ending Afghanistan's 17-year war.

Get the latest election news, live updates and election schedule for Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on ndtv.com/elections. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the 2019 Indian general elections. </s> The United Nations said Monday that "international military forces" killed 13 civilians, 10 of whom were children, in an airstrike near Kunduz city in Afghanistan.

The United States, as Agence France-Presse reported, "is the only member of the international coalition in Afghanistan that provides air support in the conflict."

The children that were killed in the weekend strike were all part of the same extended family who had been displaced because of violence in another part of the county, according to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's (UNAMA) preliminary findings on the incident.

Three other civilians were wounded in the strike, UNAMA said.

In a statement quoted by the New York Times, Richardson blamed the Taliban for the casualties. "The Taliban were hiding in civilian homes and maneuvered in and out of compounds without any concern for the families living inside," she said.

According to the Times, the incident broke out

after a convoy of American and Afghan Special Forces left the area of the previous day’s combat and an armored vehicle used by the Americans broke down as they were heading to a security checkpoint. When the soldiers got out to fix the vehicle, an Afghan soldier nearby opened fire on them; Afghan officials described him as a Taliban insider who deliberately provoked the attack. The Americans fired back at the attacker, and Afghan soldiers stationed in a nearby outpost returned fire at them, not realizing what had happened, according to Mohammed Ibrahim, the commander of Afghan Local Police in Kunduz Province, who described it as an accident set off by the insider who first opened fire.

Americans ordered the airstrikes after roughly 20 minutes of crossfire, the Times reported.

The deadly bombing comes a month after the release of a U.N. report showing that 2018 saw the highest number of Afghan civilians killed in the war since records began a decade ago. Of the 3,804 civilian deaths, the report said, 927 were children.

The report also put blame on U.S. airstrikes for 393 of the total deaths, and noted that casualties from airstrikes have increased every year since 2014. </s> Eleven members of an Afghan family, mostly women and children, were killed Friday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb while they were travelling for an engagement ceremony in the country's volatile east.

The attack occurred in the Mohammad Agha district of Logar province but no militant group has so far claimed responsibility.

"The bomb struck their Toyota sedan when they were going for an engagement ceremony," said Logar Governor Mohammad Halim Fidai.

"The victims included five women and five children."

Provincial authorities blamed the Taliban, who launched their annual "spring offensive" last month, for the killings.

The Taliban were not immediately reachable for comment, but roadside bombs have been the militants' weapon of choice in their war against foreign and Afghan security forces.

The bombs also increasingly kill and wound civilians.

Some 987 child casualties were reported from conflict-related incidents in the first four months of 2017, a record high for the period since the United Nations began documenting such cases.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan voiced alarm when five boys from one family were killed this month by an unexploded mortar round in Laghman province.

"The children were playing outside their home and found the mortar round, likely fired during fighting earlier in the day," said UNAMA chief Tadamichi Yamamoto.

"A family destroyed in seconds -- this horror is just one of too many incidents documented at the onset of this fighting season." </s> At least 13 civilians, mostly children, were killed in an airstrike by international troops in northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province over the weekend, the United Nations mission in the war-torn country said Monday.

Denouncing the civilian casualties, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in a statement urged the authorities to probe the tragedy and take steps to ensure civilians are not harmed during military operations. </s> Kabul: Eleven members of an Afghan family, mostly women and children, were killed on Friday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb while they were travelling for an engagement ceremony in the country`s volatile east.

The attack occurred in the Mohammad Agha district of Logar province but no militant group has so far claimed responsibility.

"The bomb struck their Toyota sedan when they were going for an engagement ceremony," said Logar Governor Mohammad Halim Fidai.

"The victims included five women and five children."

Provincial authorities blamed the Taliban, who launched their annual "spring offensive" last month, for the killings.

The Taliban were not immediately reachable for comment, but roadside bombs have been the militants` weapon of choice in their war against foreign and Afghan security forces.

The bombs also increasingly kill and wound civilians.

Some 987 child casualties were reported from conflict-related incidents in the first four months of 2017, a record high for the period since the United Nations began documenting such cases.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan voiced alarm when five boys from one family were killed this month by an unexploded mortar round in Laghman province.

"The children were playing outside their home and found the mortar round, likely fired during fighting earlier in the day," said UNAMA chief Tadamichi Yamamoto.

"A family destroyed in seconds -- this horror is just one of too many incidents documented at the onset of this fighting season." </s> Civilians, mostly women and children, were killed last week in air raids by coalition forces in Afghanistan's Helmand province, an initial United Nations inquiry suggested.

On Thursday and Friday, as many as 18 civilians died in air strikes in Helmand's Sangin district, according to a statement released by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Sunday.

The UN said the strikes had been conducted by "international military forces", but only US aircraft have been involved in recent coalition strikes, according to US military officials.

Afghan officials and local residents told Al Jazeera that the death toll was higher than 18.

"The jets arrived at around 3am (local time) on Friday and started bombing indiscriminately in a heavy residential area. I lost my aunt, two cousins and a nephew in the strikes," Mullah Fazal Ahmed told Al Jazeera.

"Six others in my family were wounded," said Ahmed, adding that the bombardment lasted for up to half an hour.

"Most of them who were pulled out of the rubble were bodies of women and children, as young as five-years-old."

US military officials said their aircraft conducted around 30 air raids in Helmand in the past week. NATO's Resolute Support mission has initiated an inquiry into the incident.

"We are investigating the allegations, but let me tell you, no one has reached any final conclusion on this incident in Helmand," Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, a US army spokesman in Afghanistan told Al Jazeera.

"We all know that there is a fight against the Taliban going on in Sangin for the past 10 days, there are mortars being fired by the Taliban and Afghan forces are fighting them, so its not at all clear at the moment how these civilians were killed."

READ MORE: UN to probe US air raid that killed women and children

The NATO-led military mission has deployed hundreds of troops to Helmand in a bid to help Afghan security forces in their war against Taliban fighters.

Civilian casualties from both American and Afghan air strikes increased dramatically last year, according to the UN's most recent report on threats to civilians.

At least 891 civilians were killed or injured in 2016, a figure highest in areas outside of Kabul. </s> MAZAR-I-SHARIF - Eight children, including four siblings, were killed in Afghanistan when a mortar shell they were playing with exploded, relatives said Saturday, adding to the ever-growing civilian toll in the 17-year war.

Another six children were wounded in the blast on Friday, including two who had lost limbs and were in a critical condition in a hospital in the northwestern province of Faryab. All the children were aged between five and 12. “They found an unexploded mortar shell and brought it near our house,” Shukrullah, an uncle of four of the children killed, told AFP.

“They didn’t know what it was and were trying to open it when it suddenly exploded.”

Mohammad Alam, who was a cousin of four of the children, said he heard a “big explosion”.

“I rushed to the site and saw the kids covered in blood,” Alam told AFP from the hospital. “They had found an unexploded shell and were playing with it when it went off.”

Officials were quick to blame the explosion on the Taliban, which last week captured Koh-e-Sayad village where the children lived.

The militants had planted a mine near a security checkpoint, Faryab police spokesman Abdul Karim Yoresh told AFP. “On Friday afternoon the children were passing the area when the mine hit them,” Yoresh said.

Children are often killed or maimed by explosive devices left over from decades of conflict, carelessly discarded or deliberately planted.

Civilians, including children, have borne the brunt of the conflict which began with the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime.

UN figures show 3,179 children were killed or wounded in 2017, accounting for almost one-third of the total civilian casualties for the year.

Improvised explosive devices, such as remotely detonated or pressure-plate bombs, killed or wounded 545 of them.

Unexploded ordnance claimed the lives of 142 children and wounded 376 in the same period.
A United States airstrike in Afghanistan early Saturday kills 10 children and 3 adults. The family was displaced because of the conflict according to early findings by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.