KABUL, Afghanistan — Airstrikes in western Afghanistan killed more than a dozen civilians, according to residents and officials on Tuesday, adding to the record number of civilians who have died this year as violence has intensified.

The exact number of casualties in the airstrikes Monday afternoon in the Shindand district of Herat Province was unclear. Gaelany Farhad, a spokesman for the province’s governor, said that 13 civilians and 16 Taliban fighters had been killed in Zer Koh, a remote and mountainous area where factions of the Taliban have a foothold but have sometimes fought one another.

But several residents contacted by The New York Times said that the Taliban had left the area about three hours before the strikes, and that all of the victims were civilians, many of them women and children.

A spokesman for the American military in Afghanistan, which often carries out airstrikes to try to provide support to Afghan forces, said that the strikes on Monday were by the Afghan Air Force.