KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said that a NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed a woman and two children on Tuesday, again raising the issue of civilian casualties at a time when both the presidential election and the future of the Western troop presence are unresolved.

Local officials said that a NATO aircraft had fired a rocket into a village in the Nadir Shah Kot district of Khost Province, striking an area where a family was gathered. In addition to killing the woman and children, the attack wounded a man, officials said. They said the victims may have been camping in tents in a mountainous part of the district.

A spokesman for the governor of Khost Province, Mubrez Zadran, said a delegation had been sent to the area to investigate.

In the past, instances of NATO’s causing civilian casualties have led to harsh condemnations from President Hamid Karzai, and the issue helped derail the signing of a security pact between the Afghans and Americans after he demanded an end to all such attacks.