Bad informant info led to fatal airstrike in Afghanistan

By Alissa J. Rubin and Jawad Sukhanyar

KABUL, Afghanistan

Afghan government officials who traveled to the snowbound village where seven children and a young adult reportedly were killed in a NATO airstrike this week said the bombing was based on bad information from an informant.

The officials said after talking to local residents and seeing the area, they concluded that an informant had misled the French troops who control the area.

The airstrike took place Wednesday in the village of Geyaba in Kapisa province in eastern Afghanistan.

Among the dead were seven boys under 14 and an 18-year-old, according to Abdul Mubin Safi, the administrative director of Kapisa province. They were herding sheep less than half a mile from their homes when the bombing happened.

NATO representatives and Afghan officials traveled to the area by helicopter to investigate the incident and returned Friday, said Maj. Jason Waggoner, a NATO spokesman. He said there was no word yet from NATO officials on the joint Afghan-NATO team's findings.

One member of the team, Mohammad Hussain Khan Sanjani, the chairman of the provincial council, who was reached by phone in Kapisa, said that after talking with people in the village, it seemed that misinformation had been passed to NATO forces.

"These people are involved in animal husbandry; they own sheep and goats and their children went out to feed the animals behind their village under some oak trees," Sanjani said.

France's military high command did not respond to requests for comment on the airstrike in Kapisa.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the loss of life and blamed a NATO airstrike on Thursday.