NATO Hits Mosque - At Least 25 Dead In Maigan Village

KABUL: About 25 people may have been killed in a Nato airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Monday, an Afghan official said.
The head of Helmand’s provincial council, Fazal Bari, said local officials had told him that 25 people had been killed but that the casualty figures could rise because many bodies were still buried in the rubble.
He said the dead were inside a mosque in Baghran district, but Nato said it has 'no reports' of a mosque being struck. Nato officials however confirmed there had been an airstrike in Helmand province. Nato said at least 15 Taliban militants were killed in southern Afghanistan in the air strike and in clashes.
“People are very angry,” said eyewitness Salah Ayap, a 26-year-old driver in Maigan village where the strike took place. He said that foreign troops arrived in the village around 2am and there was a fierce gunfight before the airstrike.
Only two walls and one small room of the large mosque were now standing, he said, and villagers were digging the dead out from the rubble with farming tools and washing them for burial.
He said nearby houses has also been damaged, and some civilians were wounded and a 10-year-old child killed.
Baghran is the northernmost district in Helmand, about 160 kilometres north of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.
Separately, the number of foreign troops to die this year in Afghanistan reached 600.


Update 28.10 :- (Afghan/Syrian newsfeeds). 
More than 25 people may have been killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Monday, an Afghan official said today. NATO officials confirmed there had been an airstrike in Helmand province.The coalition was continuing to 'look into the operation', the officials said.
The head of Helmand's provincial council, Fazal Bari, said local officials had told him that 25 people had been killed but that the casualty figures could rise because many bodies were still buried in the rubble. He said the dead were inside a mosque in Baghran district but NATO says it has 'no reports' of a mosque being struck. Baghran is the northernmost district in Helmand, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.