NATO officials said they were targeting insurgents and would look into claims that children were killed

A NATO airstrike killed three children in Afghanistan‘s Helmand province on Sunday, Afghan officials said Monday.

“Two Taliban mine-planters were identified and targeted by ISAF from the air and killed,” district police chief Ahmad Shah Khan told AFP. “Three children, two boys and a girl, who were nearby collecting firewood were also killed,” Khan added.

The claim that two insurgents and three children were killed was corroborated by another Afghan official in Helmand.

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan confirmed the airstrike took place and said three insurgents were killed, but that it would investigate the claims that children were killed.

NATO airstrikes rather frequently kill innocent Afghan children and other civilians in a war that a large segment across the American political spectrum now believes is useless and a failure.

The NATO response to killing innocents in airstrikes is typically to claim an investigation has started, or that they formally apologize. No accountability for the loss of life is forced on the military occupiers who are needlessly killing Afghans.